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Discovery  of  the  Hudson  River. 


THE 

HISTORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY 


FROM  ITS  DISCOVERY  BY  COLUMBUS  TO  THE  CELEBRATION 
OF  THE  CENTENNIAL  ANNIVERSARY  OF  ITS 
DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE: 


EMBRACING 


AN  ACCOUNT  OF  ITS  DISCOVERY;  NARRATIVES  OF  THE  STRUGGLES 
OF  ITS  EARLY  SETTLERS ;  SKETCHES  OF  ITS  HEROES ;  THE 
HISTORY  OF  THE  WAR  FOR  INDEPENDENCE,  AND  THE 
WAR  FOR  NATIONALITY;  ITS  INDUSTRIAL  SUC¬ 
CESSES,  AND  A  RECORD  OF  ITS  WHOLE 
PROGRESS  AS  A  NATION. 


BT 

ABBY  SAGE  RICHARDSON.  ^ 

BEAUTIFULLY  AND  PROFUSELY  ILLUSTRATED  BY 


ENGRAVINGS  FROM  ORIGINAL  DESIGNS  BY  GRANVILLE  PERKINS, 
C.  G.  BUSH,  AND  FELIX  0.  C.  DARLEY,  AND  PORTRAITS 
OF  DISTINGUISHED  DISCOVERERS,  STATES¬ 
MEN,  GENERALS,  AND  HEROES- 


SOSTOtv 


college 


BOSTON: 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY. 

Ktoerstoe  pres#,  CambritJge. 

1883. 


Coj)yright ,  1875. 

Abby  Sage  Richardson. 


RIVERSIDE,  CAMBRIDGE: 
ELECTROTYPED  AND  PRINTED  BY 
H.  O.  HOUGHTON  AND  COMPANY. 


Em 


TO 

MY  TWO  BOYS, 

WITH  THE  HOPE  THAT  IT  MAY  HELP  TO  WAKEN  AND  KEEP 
ALIVE  IN  THEIR  HEARTS  ONE  OF  THE  NOBLEST 
AND  MOST  SACRED  OF  HUMAN  FEELINGS, 

THE  LOVE  OF  COUNTRY, 

THIS  BOOK  IS  AFFECTIONATELY  DEDICATED  BY 

I 

THEIR  MOTHER. 


e 


CONTENTS. 


PART  I. 

THE  STORY  OF  THE  COLONIES  :  FROM  INFANCY  TO  INDEPENDENCE. 

CHAPTER  I. 

DISCOVERY  OF  AMERICA.  PA«B 

Christopher  Columbus.  —  The  Route  to  the  East.  —  Columbus  wishes  to  sail  Westward 
to  India.  — He  applies  to  Portugal  and  Genoa.  — Finally  aided  by  Isabella  of  Spain.  — 

Sets  Sail  from  Palos. — Incidents  of  Voyage. — Discovers  West  Indies. — Riches  of 
the  New  World. — Second  Voyage . 25 


CHAPTER  II. 

OTHER  VOYAGES  OF  COLUMBUS. 

Portugal  finds  an  Eastern  Passage  to  India.  — Columbus  and  the  Egg.  — Third  Voyage. — 
Touches  the  Continent.  —  Sad  Fate  of  Columbus . •  .  .  .33 

CHAPTER  III. 

NAMING  OF  AMERICA,  AND  OTHER  DISCOVERERS. 

Amerigo  Vespucci.  —  The  Brothers  Pinzon.  —  Gulf  of  the  Three  Brothers. — Florida  dis¬ 
covered.  —  Fountain  of  Immortal  Youth . 35 

CHAPTER  IV. 

FIRST  VIEW  OF  THE  PACIFIC. 

Spanish  Colonies.  —  Vasco  Nunez  de  Balboa.  — Avarice  of  Spaniards.  — The  Indians  lead 
Balboa  in  Sight  of  the  Land  of  Gold.  —  The  South  Sea . 39 

CHAPTER  V. 

FIRST  VOYAGE  AROUND  THE  WORLD. 

Magellan  at  Patagonia.  —  The  First  Potatoes  eaten  by  Europeans.  —  The  Straits  of  Magel¬ 
lan. —  Death  of  the  Great  Navigator. — Return  of  the  Last  Ship  to  Spain  .  .  .41 

CHAPTER  VI. 

DISCOVERY  OF  THE  MISSISSIPPI  RIVER. 

Cortez  and  Pizarro.  —  Story  of  Narvaez.  —  Cabepa  de  Vaca  crosses  the  Continent.  —  Fer¬ 
dinand  de  Soto.  —  Grand  Army  of  De  Soto.  —  Story  of  John  Ortiz.  —  The  Great  Mis¬ 
sissippi.  —  Burial  of  De  Soto.  —  Return  of  his  Army . 43 

CHAPTER  VII. 

ENGLISH  AND  FRENCH  EXPLORERS. 

Henry  VII.  of  England.  —  Sebastian  Cabot  discovers  North  America.  —  The  French  King 
sends  Ships  to  America.  —  Verrazano  comes  to  New  York.  —  Voyages  of  Jacques  Car- 
tier  to  Canada.  —  His  Ship  lost  in  the  St.  Lawrence  49 


VI 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

FRENCH  ATTEMPTS  AT  SETTLEMENT. 

The  French  Protestants.  —  The  Land  of  Flowers.  —  The  Colony  of  Ribault  in  Carolina.  — 
Spaniards  at  St.  Augustine. — The  Spanish  massacre  the  French  Colony.  —  Sad  Fate 
of  Ribault  and  his  Companions.  —  Dominic  de  Gourgues.  —  He  avenges  the  Murder  of 
Frenchmen . .  .53 

CHAPTER  IX. 

ENGLISH  ATTEMPTS  AT  SETTLEMENT. 

Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert’s  Voyage.  —  His  Ship  struck  by  an  Iceberg. — The  Shipwrecked 
Crew.  —  Walter  Raleigh’s  First  Colony.  —  Homesick  Emigrants.  —  The  Lost  Colonists  59 

CHAPTER  X. 

THE  INDIANS. 

first  Inhabitants  of  America. — Aztecs  in  Mexico.  —  The  Red  Men  of  the  United  States. 

—  How  they  looked.  —  Their  Houses.  — The  Clothes  they  wore.  — Canoes.  — Food.  — 
Household  Implements. --Indian  Women.  —  The  Happy  Hunting-grounds  .  .  .  65 

»  CHAPTER  XI. 

FIRST  PERMANENT  ENGLISH  SETTLEMENT. 

King  James  grants  Lands -in  Virginia.  —  The  Sealed  Orders  for  the  Colony.  —  Captain 
John  Smith. — His  School-days.  —  Turns  Hermit. — Tournament  with  the  Turks. — 

His  Slavery  in  Tartary.  —  His  Character  as  Leader  in  a  Colony . 74 

CHAPTER  XII. 

THE  JAMESTOWN  COLONY. 

Smith  and  Newport  explore  the  Country.  —  Smith  taken  Prisoner  by  Indians.  —  The 
Young  Pocahontas  saves  his  Life.  —  New  Arrivals  in  Jamestown. —  Shipwreck  of 
Gates  and  Somers.  —  Pocahontas  taken  Prisoner.  —  Marriage  and  Death  of  Pocahontas  79 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE  PLANTER  IN  VIRGINIA. 

How  a  Settlement  was  begun.  —  Exports  of  the  Colonists.  —  Choosing  Sites  for  Planta¬ 
tions.  —  Slavery  introduced  into  Virginia.  —  Buying  a  Wife  with  Tobacco.  —  Life  in 
England  in  1607.  —  A  Virginia  Planter’s  House  in  1649  .  84 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

A  CHAPTER  OF  ENGLISH  HISTORY. 

John  Smith  sets  out  on  another  Voyage.  —  Queen  Elizabeth  and  her  Father.  —  Bloody 
Mary  persecutes  the  Protestants.  —  The  Puritans.  —  The  Cavaliers.  —  The  Puritan  Em¬ 
igrants  in  Holland.  —  They  resolve  to  buy  Lands  in  America  .  .  ...  90 

CHAPTER  XV. 

EMIGRATION  OF  PILGRIMS. 

The  Mayflower  sets  sail  from  Plymouth.  —  Landing  in  Massachusetts.  —  Treaty  with  Mas- 
sasoit.  —  Struggles  of  the  Colony.  —  Massachusetts  Bay  Colony  formed.  —  The  Apos¬ 
tle  of  the  Indians . 94 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

SETTLEMENT  OF  RHODE  ISLAND. 

Religious  Intolerance.  —  Roger  Williams’s  Banishment.  —  He  finds  Succor  from  friendly 
Indians.  — Providence  settled.  —  Religious  Freedom  in  Rhode  Island.  —  Williams  gets 
a  Charter  for  his-  Colony .  ...  102 


CONTENTS. 


Vll 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

WEST  COUNTRY  PEOPLE  SETTLE  CONNECTICUT. 

Settlers  in  Dorchester.  — March  to  Connecticut  River.  —  New  Haven  founded.  —  Traders 
and  Fishermen  settle  New  Hampshire  and  Maine.  —  Troubles  in  England.  —  The  King 
beheaded.  —  Story  of  Oliver  Cromwell.  —  Maine  a  Province  of  Massachusetts  .  .  106 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

THE  DUTCH  IN  AMERICA. 

The  Country  of  Holland.  —  How  they  keep  off  the  Sea.  —  Dutch  Traders.  —  Plenty  Hud¬ 
son  sent  to  America.  —  Hudson  River  discovered. — Fur-trade.  —  New  York  City  be¬ 
gun. —  Indians  afraid  of  Windmills.  —  Warfare  with  Indians. — Ivieft’s  Massacre  .  109 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

THE  SWEDES  IN  NEW  JERSEY  AND  DELAWARE. 

Peter  Minuit  and  his  Colony  of  Swedes.  —  They  buy  New  Jersey  for  an  Iron  Kettle. — 

New  Jersey  claimed  and  named  by  Three  Nations.  —  A  New  King  in  England.  —  New 
York  City  becomes  an  English  Colony.  —  New  Jersey  named  by  an  English  Nobleman  115 

CHAPTER  XX. 

SETTLEMENT  OF  MARYLAND. 

Lord  Baltimore  and  the  Carolinas.  —Roman  Catholic  Colony.  —  Indian  Wonder  at  the  Big 
Canoe.  — Freedom  to  worship  God.  —  Papists  and  Puritans.  — Lord  Baltimore’s  Ambi¬ 
tion. —  Maryland  one  of  the  King’s  Colonies.  — Ribault  and  Raleigh’s  Unsuccessful 
Colonies. — The  Carolinas  settled  again . 118 

CHAPTER  XXL 

THE  QUAKER  SETTLEMENT. 

Persecution  of  Quakers. — William  Penn  the  Admiral.  —  His  only  Son  turns  Quaker. — 
Dress  and  Manners  of  Quakers. — Young  Penn  inherits  his  Father’s  Wealth.  —  He 
brings  a  Colony  to  America.  —  Treaty  with  Indians.  — City  of  Brotherly  Love.  —  Nam¬ 
ing  of  Pennsylvania.  —  Delaware  made  a  Separate  Colony . 122 

CHAPTER  XXII. 

GEORGIA  SETTLED. 

Another  Colony  planned. —  General  Oglethorpe.  —  The  Town  of  Savannah  begun. — 


Oglethorpe’s  Treaty.  -  Speech  of  Indian  War-chief.  —  March  of  Salzburgers.  —  Pro¬ 
slavery  Agitators. — John  Wesley  the  Great  Methodist. — Georgia  becomes  a  Royal 
Province . 125 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

KING  PHILIP’S  WAR. 

The  Thirteen  Colonies.  —  The  Colonists’  Fear  of  the  Indians.  —  Philip,  the  Son  of  friendly 
Massasoit. — John  Sassamon  tells  Tales  of  Philip. — Blood  shed  by  English  and  In¬ 
dians. —  Outbreak  of  Indian  War. — The  Attack  on  Hadley.  —  “The  Indians!  The 
Indians!” — Appearance  of  the  Strange  Warrior.  —  The  Regicides.  —  Death  of  King 
Philip.  —  End  of  the  War . 128 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

AFFAIRS  IN  VIRGINIA. 

Governor  William  Berkeley.  —  “  Thank  God  there  are  no  Free  Schools  in  Virginia!  ”  — 
John  Washington  fights  Maryland  Indians.  —  Savages  retaliate.  —  Nathaniel  Bacon 


Vlll 


CONTENTS. 


goes  into  the  Field  without  a  Commission.  — He  is  declared  Traitor.  —  Great  Excite¬ 
ment  in  Jamestown.  —  Attack  on  the  Town.  —  Bacon’s  Death.  —  Berkele}'  hangs  the 
Rebels.  — The  King  calls  him  hack  to  England.  —  What  the  King  said  of  Berkeley  .  134 

CHAPTER  XXV. 

AFFAIRS  IN  NEW  YORK  ANI>  MASSACHUSETTS. 

England  and  Holland  at  War.  —  The  Dutch  take  New  York  City  again. — Edmund  An¬ 
dros  in  Boston.  —  His  Tyrannies  there.  —  His  Journey  to  Connecticut.  —  Disappear¬ 
ance  of  the  Charter.  —  The  New  English  King.  —  Uprising  in  New  York.  —  Leisler 
executed.  —  Charter  Oak . . 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 

SALEM  WITCHCRAFT. 

Belief  in  Witches.  —  Causes  for  this  Belief.  —  The  Idea  of  the  Devil.  —  Study  of  Necro¬ 
mancy.  —  Two  Children  “  bewitched.”  —  Arrest  of  Friendless  Old  Women.  —  Babies 
chained  and  thrown  into  Prison  as  Witches.  —  Torture  of  Witches. —  Confessions.  — 
Hanging  of  Women.  —  Witches’ Hill.  — End  of  the  Witchcraft  Madness  .  .  .141 

CHAPTER  XXVII. 

INTER-COLONIAL  WARS. 

War  between  French  and  English  Colonies.  —  The  French  League  with  Indians.  —  Hor¬ 
rors  of  Indian  Warfare.  —  Story  of  Hannah  Dustin.  —  Bravery  of  the  Women.  — 
Towns  destroyed.  —  Peace  declared.  —  Another  War.  —  Peace  of  Utrecht.  —  George’s 
War. — Peace  of  Aix-la  Chapelle . 146 

CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

FRENCH  DISCOVERERS  AND  JESUIT  MISSIONARIES. 

Colony  of  Jacques  Cartier.  — French  Fishermen.  —  Samuel  Champlain  the  Father  of  New 


France. — Jesuits  on  the  Mississippi. —  Story  of  Isaac  Jogues.  —  Indians  worshiping 
with  Roman  Catholics . 150 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

THE  MISSISSIPPI  EXPLORED. 

James  Marquette  is  sent  to  the  Great  River.  —  He  goes  with  Joliet  to  Wisconsin.  —  Carry¬ 
ing  their  Canoes  on  their  Backs.  —  The  Bison  and  Deer.  —  Greeting  of  the  Illinois.  — 
Death  of  Marquette.  —  Robert  La  Salle  in  Illinois.  —  Fort  Heartbreak.  —  Murder  of 
La  Salle.  —  Hennepin  goes  to  Falls  of  St.  Anthony.  —  Adventures  of  Marquette  and 
Joliet.  — Explorations  of  the  Mississippi  River  by  La  Salle  and  Hennepin  .  .  .  153 

CHAPTER  XXX. 

THE  LAST  COLONIAL  WAR. 

Position  of  French  and  English  Colonies. — The  English  Colonies  hug  the  Sea-coast. — 
Jealousy  between  the  Nations.' — Trouble  brewing.  —  Young  George  Washington. — 

His  Winter  Journej'  to  Fort  Duquesne . 157 

CHAPTER  XXXI. 

FOUR  EXPEDITIONS  AGAINST  THE  FRENCH. 

Plan  of  the  Campaign.  — Braddock’s  Contempt  for  American  Militia.  — George  Washing¬ 
ton  in  the  Expedition  —  Braddock’s  Defeat.  — French  Neutrals.  —  Burning  of  Aca- 
die. — Evangeline.  —  Sir  William  Johnson.  —  King  Hendrick  killed  ....  161 


CONTENTS. 


IX 


CHAPTER  XXXII. 

SECOND  YEAR  OF  WAR. 

French  Fortifications  in  America.  —  War  in  earnest.  —  Story  of  Mrs.  Howe  and  her  Chil¬ 
dren.  —  Massacre  at  Fort  William  Henry.  — Loss  of  a  Noble  Young  Leader.  —  George 
Washington’s  Advice  to  the  British  Colonel.  —  The  City  of  Quebec.  —  Wolfe  ap¬ 
proaches  the  Fortress.  —  The  Heights  of  Abraham.  —  Defeat  of  the  French.  —  Death 
of  Wolfe.  —  Peace  at  last . 167 


CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

A  TOUR  IN  AMERICA. 

Sailing  for  Boston.  —  Boston  in  1760.  —  Dress  of  Lady  and  Gentleman.  —  Thanksgiving 
in  New  England.  —  Irish  Flax  Spinners.  —  By  Stage-coach  to  New  Haven.  —  New 
York  Harbor.  — A  Dutch  Interior.  — Drive  through  New  York  City. — New  Year’s 
Day.  — Up  the  Hudson  to  Albany.  — Journey  through  New  Jersey.  —  How  Philadel¬ 
phia  Streets  were  named.  —  The  Great  State-house  Bell.  —  Account  of  Benjamin  Frank¬ 
lin. —  Plantations  in  Virginia. — Christmas  Festivities. — A  Group  of  Noble  Virgin¬ 
ians.  —  Cotton  Crop  of  Eliza  Lucas . 173 

CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

UPRISING  OF  THE  COLONIES. 

The  New  King.  —  Royal  Treasury  empty.  —  Taxation  without  Representation.  —  Stirring 
Scene  in  Boston  State-house.  —  The  People  and  the  Stamp  Act.  —  Speech  of  Patrick 
Henry.  —  Our  Defenders  in  England . 186 

CHAPTER  XXXV. 

MORE  OPPRESSION. 

Daughters  of  Liberty.  —  Redcoats  in  Boston.  —  Hostnn  Massacre.  —  Boy  Rebels.  —  Tax  on 
Tea.  —  First  Continental  Congress.  — The  Man  who  attended  it.  —  Speech  of  William 
Pitt.  —  Whigs  and  Tories.  —  The  Patriotic  Barber.  —  Yankee  Doodle  ....  191 

CHAPTER  XXXVI. 

BATTLE  OF  LEXINGTON. 

Hidden  Stores  of  Gunpowder  and  Bullets.  —  Paul  Revere’s  Ride.  —  Midnight  March. — 
Scene  at  Lexington  Meeting-house.  — First  Blood  shed.  —  Destruction  of  Stores. — 

The  Retreat  and  Pursuit. — Lord  Percy  at  Charlestown. —  “Yankee  Doodle”  and 
“  Chevy  Chase  ” . 198 


CHAPTER  XXXVII. 

TICONDEROGA  AND  BUNKER  HILL. 

Congress  meets  again.  —  George  Washington  made  Commander  of  the  Armies  —  Green 
Mountain  Boys. — Ethan  Allen  takes  Ticonderoga  and  Crown  Point  — Oglethorpe  re¬ 
fuses  to  fight  the  Americans.  —  Noble  Words  of  Samuel  Adams. — Americans  on  Bun¬ 
ker  Hill. —  Battle  of  Bunker  Hill.  —  The  Monument  there . 204 

t 

CHAPTER  XXXVIII. 

■WASHINGTON  AND  HIS  ARMY. 

Washington’s  Camps  about  Boston.  — The  Patriot  Generals.  —  Story  of  Israel  Putnam.  — 
Dress  of  the  Soldiers.  —  Pennsylvania  Riflemen. —  Story  of  a  Marksman.  —  Washing¬ 
ton’s  Anxieties . 212 


X 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX. 

THE  MARCH  TO  QUEBEC. 

On  to  Canada.  —  Montgomery  clothes  his  Soldiers  in  Montreal. — Benedict  Arnold’s  Heroic 
March  to  Quebec.  —  Attack  on  the  Citadel.  —  Montgomery’s  Death.  —  Brave  Act  of 
Aaron  Burr.  —  Retreat  from  Canada . 215 

CHAPTER  XL. 

AFFAIRS  IN  MASSACHUSETTS  AND  SOUTH  CAROLINA. 

The  Redcoats  imprisoned  in  Boston.  —  Howe  concludes  to  leave  Boston.  —  The  Tories  go  to 
Halifax.  —  Entrance  of  Washington  into  Boston.  —  Joy  of  the  Patriots.  —  Washington 
goes  to  New  York.  — The  Hessians  in  America.  —  A  British  Fleet  attacks  Charleston  218 

CHAPTER  XLI. 

INDEPENDENCE  DECLARED. 

Colonial  Feeling  towards  England.  —  The  Declaration  of  Independence.  —  Our  National 
Holiday. — Retreat  from  Kipp’s  Landing. — Anger  of  Washington. — Mrs.  Murray’s 
Ruse  to  save  General  Putnam.  —  Retreat  through  New  Jersey.  —  A  Gloomy  Outlook 
for  Washington.  —  Bad  News  from  Newport  and  Lake  Champlain.  —  Prison  Ships.  — 
Washington  crosses  the  Delaware.  —  Victory  at  Trenton . 221 

CHAPTER  XLII. 

EVENTS  IN  NEW  JERSEY  AND  PENNSYLVANIA  IN  1777. 

Rebels  and  Redcoats  in  Friendly  Converse. — Battle  of  Princeton.  —  Washington  at  Mor¬ 
ristown.  —  The  Marquis  de  Lafayette.  —  Other  Noble  Foreigners.  —  Defeat  at  Brandy¬ 
wine.  —  Story  of  Lydia  Darrah.  —  Good  News  on  the  Way . 227 

CHAPTER  XLIIL 
burgoyne’s  campaign. 

The  Burning  of  Danbury.  —  General  Burgovne.  —  The  Tory  Brant.  —  Burgoyne  takes 
Ticonderoga. — Defense  of  Fort  Stanwix. — Brave  General  Herkimer. — Massacre  of 
Jane  McCrea.  —  Murmurs  against  General  Schuyler.  —  The  Relief  of  Fort  Stanwix.  — 
Stark’s  Speech  at  Bennington.  — The  Encampment  on  Bemis  Heights.  — Battle  of  Sar¬ 
atoga.  —  Surrender  of  Burgoyne . 232 


CHAPTER  XLIV. 

THE  YEAR  1778. 

Gayeties  in  Philadelphia.  — The  Terrible  Winter  at  Valley  Forge.  —  Story  of  Washington 
and  the  Farmer.  — Molly  Pitcher  at  Monmouth.  —  Philadelphia  ours  once  more.  —  The 
Wyoming  Massacre. — Tories  and  Indians. — Atrocities  of  the  Wyoming  Attack. — 

End  of  the  Year . 239 


CHAPTER  XLV. 

SAVANNAH  AND  STONY  POINT. 

Continental  Money.  —  Lincoln  and  Count  D'Estaing  at  Savannah.  —  Defeat  to  the  Ameri¬ 
cans.  —  Mad  Anthony  Wayne.  —  The  Forlorn  Hope.  —  Taking  of  Stony  Point  .  .  243 

CHAPTER  XLVI. 

JOHN  PAUL  JONES. 

Privateers.  — Daring  Adventure  of  John  Paul  Jones.  —  The  Bon  Homme,  Richard.  — Fight 
with  the  Serapis.  —  The  Ships  tied  together.  —  Victory . 246 


CONTENTS. 


XI 


CHAPTER  XLVII. 

EVENTS  DURING  1779. 

Discontent  in  the  Army. — Flogging  of  Soldiers.  —  Taking  of  Charleston  by  the  British. 

—  Tarleton’s  Quarter. — General  Marion’s  Militia. — Story  of  Marion  and  the  British 
Officer.  —  Count  Rochambeau  in  Rhode  Island . 250 

CHAPTER  XLVIII. 

TREASON  OF  BENEDICT  ARNOLD. 

West  Point. — Gustavus,  and  John  Anderson.  —  Capture  of  Colonel  Andrd.  —  Escape  of 
Benedict  Arnold.  —  Andre  condemned  to  be  hanged.  —  His  Letter  to  Washington.  — 

Plot  to  save  Andre. — Feigned  Desertion  of  Champe.  —  The  Execution  of  Andrd. — 
Failure  of  Champe’s  Enterprise  and  his  Return . 253 

CHAPTER  XLIX. 

DEFEAT  AND  VICTORY  IN  THE  SOUTH. 

Misfortunes  of  Gates  in  South  Carolina.  —  A  Stronghold  on  King’s  Mountain.  —  General 
Greene  takes  Command.  —  A  Ragged  Army.  —  Victory  at  Cowpens.  —  Sharp  Retort 
of  a  Patriotic  Woman.  —  The  Bravery  of  South  Carolina  Women  ....  260 


CHAPTER  L. 
greene’s  campaign. 

March  through  the  Carolinas.  —  Attack  upon  Camden.  —  Fort  Ninety-six.  —  Eutaw 
Springs . 265 


CHAPTER  LI. 

THE  WINTICR  OF  1780-81. 

Mutiny  in  the  Army.  —  Riot  among  Wayne’s  Troops.  —  Mutineers  shot.  —  Benedict  Ar¬ 
nold  ravages  Virginia.  —  Governor  Thomas  Jefferson.  —  Arnold  in  his  Native  State.  — 
Barbarous  Murder  of  Colonel  Ledyard.  —  Concentration  of  the  French  and  American 
Forces  for  Campaign  of  1781  .  267 


CHAPTER  LIE 

SIEGE  OF  YORKTOWN. 

March  of  French  Army  to  Virginia.  —  The  whole  Army  of  Washington  before  Yorktown. 

—  The  Batteries  open  Fire.  —  Cornwallis  attempts  to  Escape.  — His  Surrender.  —  Gen¬ 
eral  Lincoln’s  Revenge.  — End  of  the  War . 271 

CHAPTER  LIII. 

CLOSING  EVENTS  OF  THE  REVOLUTION. 

Savannah  and  Charleston  evacuated  by  the  British.  —  England  baited  on  all  Sides.  —  She 
is  glad  to  have  Peace.  —  Our  Great  Statesmen  during  the  War.  —  Benjamin  Franklin 
in  France. — John  Adams  and  Thomas  Jefferson.  —  Henry  Laurens  in  the  Tower  of 
London.  — John  Jay.  —  The  First  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  —  The  Commission  to 
Treat  for  Peace.  —  The  Thirteen  English  Colonies  become  the  Nation  of  the  United 
States. — Evacuation  of  New  York  City.  —  Fireworks  on  Bowling  Green.  —  Washing¬ 
ton’s  Farewell  to  his  Officers. —  Affecting  Scene  in  Francis’s  Tavern  ....  274 


XU 


CONTENTS. 


PART  II. 

TIIE  STORY  OF  THE  NATION:  ITS  BIRTH,  CONFLICTS,  AND  TRIUMPHS. 

CHAPTER  I. 

CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES. 

Forming  a  Government.  — The  Constitution  and  its  Makers.  — Grand  Celebration  in  New 
York  City.  — The  Two  Political  Parties.  —  Washington  made  President.  — Inaugura¬ 
tion  Ball.  —  Change  in  Dress  and  Manners  after  the  Revolution . 283 

CHAPTER  II. 

EVENTS  IN  WASHINGTON’S  ADMINISTRATION. 

Settlers  in  the  Western  Country.  —  “  D.  Boon  cilled  a  Bar.”  —  Scarcity  of  Salt.  —  Dan¬ 
ger  from  Indians.  —  General  Anthony  Wayne  sent  to  fight  Savages.  —  Death  of 
W  ayne.  — Three  New  States  added  to  the  Nation.  —  Story  of  Young  Andrew  Jackson. 

—  Revolution  in  France.  —  The  Guillotine.  —  French  Sympathizers  in  the  United 
States.  —  Washington’s  Public  Life  draws  to  a  Close . 288 

CHAPTER  III. 

ADAMS’S  ADMINISTRATION. 

W  ar  with  France  imminent.  — Washington  and  Napoleon. — The  Nation  mourns  at  Wash¬ 
ington’s  Death. — The  Capital  changed  to  Washington  City. — Mrs.  Adams’s  Expe¬ 
riences  in  Washington . 294 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Jefferson’s  presidency. 

The  Purchase  of  Louisiana.  —  The  First  Journey  from  Ocean  to  Ocean. — Lewis  and 
Clarke’s  Expedition.  —  The  Sources  of  the  Missouri  and  Columbia  Rivers.  —  The 
Great  Pacific  Ocean.  —  Return  of  Lewis  and  Clarke . 297 

CHAPTER  Y. 

WAR  WITH  ALGERINE  PIRATES. 

Pirates  of  the  Mediterranean  Sea.  —  Demands  of  these  Sea  Robbers  on  United  States.  — 
General  Eaton’s  Interview  with  the  Bey  of  Tunis. — Royal  Beggars. — War  declared. 

—  Daring  Feat  of  Decatur. — The  Philadelphia  burned  in  the  Harbor  of  Tripoli. — 

The  Bashaw  Ilamet.  — End  of  War . 301 


CHAPTER  YI. 

Jefferson’s  second  term. 

Aaron  Burr’s  Duel  with  Hamilton.  —  Hamilton’s  Death.  —  Burr’s  Disgrace.  —  First  Steam¬ 
boat  on  the  Hudson. —  Fulton’s  Triumph. — The  Great  Event  of  Jefferson’s  Adminis¬ 
tration  . 309 


CHAPTER  VII. 

MADISON’S  PRESIDENCY. 

Character  of  Madison. — Tecumseh.  —  William  Henry  Harrison,  Governor  of  Indiana. — 

The  Visit  of  Tecumseh. — The  Prophet.  —  Battle  of  Tippecanoe.  —  Impressment  of 
American  Sailors  on  English  Ships. —  The  Leopard  and  Chesapeake. — War  declared 
against  England.  —  Flogging  of  an  American  Sailor.  —  War  Feeling  in  the  United 
States . 311 


CONTENTS. 


Xlll 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

OPENING  OF  THE  WAR  OF  1812. 

The  Scene  of  War.  —  Hull’s  Surrender  of  Detroit.  —  Disgrace  of  Hull.  —  The  Chicago 
Massacre.  — Young  Winfield  Scott.  —  Defeat  on  all  Sides . 316 

CHAPTER  IX. 

VICTORIES  ON  THE  OCEAN. 

The  Constitution  beats  the  Guerriere.  —  The  Wasp  on  a  Frolic.  —  Decatur  wins  Fresh 
Laurels.  —  Flag  of  the  Macedonian  presented  to  Mrs.  Madison.  —  Bainbridge  and  the 
Constitution.  —  British  Anger  at  Defeat . 320 

CHAPTER  X. 

EVENTS  OF  1813. 

Bounty  on  American  Scalps. —  The  Slaughter  at  Frenchtown.  —  The  Hornet  meets  the 
Peacock.  —  Lawrence  takes  command  of  the  Chesapeake.  —  The  Shannon  challenges 
the  Chesapeake.  — Death  of  Lawrence.  —  “  Don’t  give  up  the  Ship  ”  ...  .  324 

CHAPTER  XI. 

BATTLE  OF  LAKE  ERIE. 

Ship-building  on  the  Lake.  — A  Stage-coach  loaded  with  Sailors.  —  The  Look-out  at  Put¬ 
in  Bay.  —  The  Battle  begins.  —  Commodore  Perry’s  Ship  disabled.  —  He  rows  to  the 
Niagara.  —  Victory  on  Lake  Erie.  —  Battle  of  the  Thames . .  328 

CHAPTER  XII. 

FRESH  VICTORIES  AND  DEFEATS. 

The  Battle  of  Chippewa.  — Scott  at  Lundy’s  Lane.  —  Admiral  Cockburn  sails  up  the  Poto¬ 
mac. —  Alarm  at  Washington.  —  The  Defense  at  Blagdensburg. — Invasion  of  Wash¬ 
ington. —  The  Dinner  at  the  White  House.  —  Baltimore  besieged.  —  The  Star  Span¬ 
gled  Banner . . 332 


CHAPTER  XIII. 
macdonough’s  victory. 

u  Old  Ironsides.”  —  Macdonough  on  Lake  Champlain.  —  Fight  on  Lake  and  on  Shore.  — 
Victory  in  the  Fleet.  —  The  British  Defeat  at  Plattsburg . 338 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

THE  LAST  CAMPAIGN  OF  THE  WAR. 

Signs  of  Peace. —  Andrew  Jackson  at  New  Orleans.  —  Organizes  Regiments  of  Black 
Men.  —  Preparations  for  a  Merry  Christmas  in  Camp.  —  Barricades  of  Sugar  Hogs¬ 
heads.  —  Battle  of  New  Orleans.  — The  Peace  Angel.  — A  New  President  elected  .  341 


CHAPTER  XV. 

MONROE  AND  ADAMS. 

More  Pirates.  —  War  with  Indians.  —  Lafayette’s  Visit.  —  Five  New  States.  —  Monroe 
Doctrine.  — Another  President  from  Massachusetts.  — Death  of  Two  Patriots.  —  Mas¬ 
sachusetts  and  Virginia.  —  A  Democratic  President . 345 


XIV 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

RAILROADS  AND  BANKS. 

Character  of  Andrew  Jackson. —  Traveling  by  Steam.  —  Tram-ways.  —  Oliver  Evans’s 
Steam-engine.  —  George  Stephenson.  —  Jackson’s  War  with  the  Banks.  —  The  First 
National  Banks.  —  Jackson  vetoes  the  Bank  Charter . 352 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

NULLIFIERS  IN  SOUTH  CAROLINA. 

Manufactures  in  United  States.  —  They  ask  for  a  “Protective  Tariff.”  —  The  South 
threaten  Rebellion.  —  Three  Great  Men.  —  The  Man  of  the  South.  —  The  Man  of  the 
West.  —  The  Man  of  the  North.  —  Wrath  of  Jackson.  — Speech  of  Daniel  Webster.— 

The  Nullitiers  subdued.  —  Indian  Troubles  again.  — The  Indians  moved  West.  — 
Jackson  returns  to  his  Hermitage . . 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

VAN  BUREN,  HARRISON,  AND  TYLER. 

“  Old  Hickory”  and  “  Old  Ironsides.”  —  Hard  Times.  —  Log  Cabin  Campaign. —  Death 
of  General  Harrison.  —  John  Tyler’s  Presidency.  —  A  New  Invention.  —  Samuel 
Morse,  the  Artist  and  Inventor.  —  Invention  of  the  Telegraph.  —  A  New  Political 
Question . . 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  MEXICO. 

Spanish  Conquest  of  Mexico.  —  Inhabitants  of  Mexico.  —  Americans  in  Texas.  —  Sam 
Houston.  — Texas  rebels  against  Mexico,  and  asks  to  join  the  United  States  .  .  371 


CHAPTER  XX. 

BEGINNING  OF  THE  MEXICAN  WAR. 

“OldZach.” — Troops  on  the  Rio  Grande. — Palo  Alto.  —  The  Prairie  on  Fire.  —  A  Bat¬ 
tle-field  by  Night.  —  Victory  over  the  Mexicans.  —  Crossing  the  Rio  Grande.  — 
Scenery  about  Monterey.  —  Capture  of  the  Bishop’s  Palace.  —  Siege  of  the  Town.  — 
Monterey  taken . 375 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

INVASION  OF  MEXICO. 

Army  of  the  West.  —  Conquest  of  New  Mexico. —  Frdmont,  the  Explorer  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains.  —  He  enters  California.  —  Kit  Carson.  —  Fremont  declares  California  an 
Independent  State.  —  The  Army  of  the  Centre.  —  “Rough  and  Ready.”  —  Bragg’s 
Battery.  —  Victory  of  Buena  Vista.  —  Five  Thousand  Miles’  March  ....  378 

CHAPTER  XXII. 

SCOTT’S  MARCH  TO  MEXICO. 

The  Fortress  of  San  Juan  D’Ulloa. — Vera  Cruz.  —  The  Road  to  the  Mexico. — Cerro 
Gordo,  or  “  Big  Hill.”  —  The  Ascent  of  the  Hill.  —  In  the  Cordilleras.  —  The  Defenses 
of  Mexico.  —  The  Hill  at  Contreras.  — The  Bridge  at  Churubusco. —  The  King’s  Mill. 

—  Grasshopper  Hill.  —  School-boys’  Defense  of  their  Academy.  —  Entry  into  Mexico. 

— t  End  of  War . 389 


CONTENTS. 


XV 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

THE  NEW  ELDORADO. 

General  Taylor  made  President.  —  Gold  in  California.  —  The  Gold  Fever.  —  Death  of 
Taylor. — Fillmore  succeeds  him. —  Election  of  Franklin  Pierce . 397 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 

SLAVERY  IN  UNITED  STATES. 

Beginning  of  African  Slavery. — First  Triumph  of  Slaveiy  in  Georgia.  —  The  North  and 
South.  —  Washington’s  Letter  to  Lafayette.  —  Slavery  in  the  Constitution.  —  The 
Slave-trade.  — Turner’s  “  Slave-ship.”  — Disputes  about  Slavery.  —  Chattel  Votes. — 
California  wants  to  be  a  Free  State.  — Anger  of  the  South . 403 

CHAPTER  XXV. 

EFFECTS  OF  SLAVERY. 

Extravagance  of  the  Tobacco  Planter.  —  Poor  Whites.  —  Black  House-servants.  —  Cotton 
Plantations.  —  Three  Classes  in  the  South . 409 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 

A  NEW  PARTY. 

The  First  Abolitionist.  —  A  Mob  in  Boston.  —  Shooting  of  Lovejoy.  —  The  Cradle  of  Lib¬ 
erty. —  A  Quaker  Poet. — Arguments  on  both  Sides. — Gunpowder  and  Cold  Steel  .  413 

CHAPTER  XXVII. 

FUGITIVE  SLAVE  LAW. 

The  President  from  New  Hampshire.  —  Escape  of  Fugitive  Slaves. —  Story  of  Margaret 
Garner.  —  The  Missouri  Compromise.  —  Beating  of  Charles  Sumner. —  “Indignation  ” 
Meetings.  —  The  Awkward  Lawyer,  and  the  Little  Giant . 417 

CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

THE  KANSAS  STRUGGLE. 

Settling  Kansas.  —  Free-state  Emigrants.  —  Bloodshed  on  the  Plains. —  Sharps’s  Rifles.  — 


A  Modern  Puritan.  —  The  “John  Brown  Tract.”  —  Attack  on  Lawrence.  — Old  Ossa- 
watomie.  —  Kansas  a  Free  State . 421 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 

RAID  INTO  VIRGINIA. 

Presidential  Contest  of  1856. — An  Exodus  of  Slaves.  —  The  “Kennedy  Farm.” — Sur¬ 
prise  of  the  Watchmen  at  Harper’s  Ferry —  The  Arsenal  taken.  — John  Brown  Pikes. 

—  Arrival  of  Soldiers.  —  Capture  of  John  Brown.  — His  Trial. — John  Brown’s 
Speech.  —  Sentence  and  Execution.  —  Scene  on  the  Gallows . 426 

CHAPTER  XXX. 

LINCOLN  ELECTED  PRESIDENT. 

Party  Quarrels.  —  The  Story  of  Abraham  Lincoln’s  Boyhood.  —  Feeling  of  the  South.  — 
Threats  to  break  up  the  Union.  — Joy  in  South  Carolina  at  Lincoln’s  Election.  — What 
is  Treason  ?  —  Difference  between  Northern  and  Southern  Patriotism  ....  431 


XVI 


CONTENTS.  . 


CHAPTER  XXXI. 

BEGINNING  OF  HOSTILITIES. 

Inauguration  Speech  of  Lincoln. — Coercion.  —  National  Property. — Forts  in  Charleston 
Harbor.  —  Guns  opened  on  Fort  Sumter. — The  Bombardment.  —  The  Flag  hauled 
down.  —  Intense  Excitement.  —  Patriotism  in  the  North.  —  Patriotism  in  the  South  436 

CHAPTER  XXXII. 

THE  MARCH  THROUGH  BALTIMORE. 

The  Regiment  from  Massachusetts. —  Mob  in  Baltimore.  —  Anniversary  of  Battle  of  Lex¬ 
ington. —  General  Scott. —  The  Seventh  Regiment  of  New  York. — A  Volunteer  Offi¬ 
cer.  —  Federal  Hill . 444 


CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

THE  SECEDING  STATES. 

An  Armed  Rebellion.  —  The  Southern  Confederacy.  —  The  Seven  Pioneers  of  Secession. 

—  East  Tennessee.  —  The  Stars  and  Bars.  —  Ellsworth  Zouaves.  —  Death  of  Ellsworth. 

—  Contrabands.  —  Theodore  Winthrop . 448 

CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

WESTERN  VIRGINIA. 

The  Ghost  of  Caesar.  —  Rich  Mountain.  —  Carrick’s  Ford.  —  Union  Defeat.  —  Loyalty  in 
the  Mountains . 453 


CHAPTER  XXXV. 

THE  FIRST  GREAT  DEFEAT. 

A  Knot  of  Railways.  —  General  Beauregard.  —  A  Moonlight  March.  —  The  Stone  Bridge. 

—  The  Cromwell  of  Rebellion.  —  Stonewall  Jackson.  —  “Johnston’s  Men  are  upon  us.” 

—  Bull  Run . 457 


CHAPTER  XXXVI. 

THE  GREAT  BORDER  STATE. 

Border  Ruffians.  —  The  Faithful  Germans.  —  Keeping  Neutral.  —  The  “Rebel  Yell”  — 
Heroic  Death  of  Lyon.  —  Fremont  in  St.  Louis.  —  His  Proclamation. — Removal  from 
Command.  —  Fremont’s  Body-guard.  —  Charge  of  the  Guard.  —  Beriah  Magoffin.  — 
McClellan  commands  the  Army  of  the  Potomac.  —  All  Quiet  on  the  River  .  .  .402 

CHAPTER  XXXVII. 

AFFAIRS  ON  THE  SEA-COAST. 

The  Blockade.  —  Blockade  Runners.  —  The  Sea  Islands.  —  A  Steamboat  Waltz.  —  The 
Trent.  —  Seizure  of  Prisoners  on  an  English  Ship.  —  Feeling  of  England.  —  Danger  of 
War  averted . 469 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII. 

TAKING  OF  DONELSON. 

Gibraltar  of  the  West. — U.  S.  Grant  in  Cairo. — Patience  and  Perseverance. — Commo¬ 
dore  Foote  batters  Fort  Henry.  —  The  Muddy  Road  to  Donelson.  —  The  Rebel  Ruse. — 
Grant  detects  the  Design.  — Fall  of  Donelson.  — Unconditional  Surrender.  —  Halleck  in 
Missouri.  —  A  Renegade  Poet.  —  Pea  Ridge.  —  Guerrillas.  —  Close  of  the  Year  1862  .  472 


CONTENTS. 


XVll 


CHAPTER  XXXIX. 

WORK  ON  THE  OCEAN  IN  1862. 

Hampton  Roads.  — The  Burnside  Expedition.  — A  Formidable  Monster.  — How  the  Cum¬ 
berland  went  down.  — A  Cheese  Box  on  a  Raft.  —  Fight  of  the  Monitor  and  Merrimack  479 

CHAPTER  XL. 

SHILOH,  ISLAND  NO.  10,  AND  CORINTH. 

The  Log  Meeting-house.  —  The  Surprise.  —  “  Drive  the  Yankees  into  the  River.”  —  Beau¬ 
regard’s  Great  Victory.  —  The  Tide  turns  next  Morning.  — Cutting  a  Canal  under  Wa¬ 
ter. —  Taking  of  Island  No.  10. — The  Siege  of  Corinth.  —  Beauregard’s  Last  Strat¬ 
egy.  —  The  Nation  had  found  its  Leader . 482 

CHAPTER  XLI. 

CAPTURE  OF  NEW  ORLEANS. 

Ship  Island.  —  Admiral  Farragut.  —  Birnam  Wood. — A  Huge  Fire  Monster.  —  Cutting 
away  the  Barriers.  —  Passing  the  Forts.  — The  Levee  at  New  Orleans.  — A  Bombastic 
Major.  —  Temper  of  the  Citizens.  —  What  “  Beast  Butler  ”  did  in  New  Orleans  .  .  489 

CHAPTER  XLII. 

PENINSULAR  CAMPAIGN. 

Quiet  on  the  Potomac.  —  Quaker  Guns.  —  Transportation  of  an  Army.  —  On  to  Richmond. 

—  Death  in  the  Swamps. — Norfolk  taken  by  General  Wool.  —  Stonewall  Jackson  in 

Western  Virginia. — Seven  Days’ Retreat.  —  Discouragement  of  the  President  .  .  495 

CHAPTER  XLIII. 

INVASION  OF  MARYLAND. 

Pope  takes  Command.  —  More  Defeats.  —  Maryland !  my  Maryland !  —  Entrance  into 
Frederick.  —  Barbara  Frietchie.  —  Through  the  Mountain-gap.  —  McClellan  makes 
haste. — The  Antietam  Creek.  —  Fighting  Joe  Hooker.  —  The  Battle.  —  Lee’s  Retreat. 

—  Burnside  made  Commander. —  Ruins  of  Fredericksburg . 499 

CHAPTER  XL1V. 

AFFAIRS  IN  THE  WEST. 

Generals  Bragg,  Polk,  and  Hardee.  —  The  Queen  City  threatened.  —  Southern  Rhetoric. 


—  Armor  of  the  Southern  Soldiers.  —  Rebel  Spoils  in  Kentucky.  — Battle  of  Corinth.  — 
Christmas  Jollity  at  Murfreesboro’.  —  Rosecrans  marches  on  the  Revelers.  —  “  We  fight, 
or  die  here.” — Victory  for  Unionists . 508 


CHAPTER  XLV. 

EMANCIPATION. 

The  Day  of  Jubilee.  —  Sambo  in  the  Union  Lines.  —  The  Loyal  Chattel.  —  Lincoln  on 
the  Union  and  Slavery. — His  Solemn  Vow.  —  The  Emancipation  Proclamation. — 
Prejudice  against  Negro  Soldiers . 514 


CHAPTER  XLVI. 

SIEGE  OF  VICKSBURG. 

Western  Men.  — Surroundings  of  Vicksburg.  —  Digging  a  Canal  again.  — Running  the 
Batteries. — Grant’s  Baggage. — The  Assaults.  — Bombardment.  —  Surrender.  —  Port 

Hudson. —  The  Mississippi  flows  unvexed  to  the  Sea . 517 

b 


XV11I 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  XLVII. 

THE  WAR  IK  THE  EAST. 

The  Army  in  Winter-quarters.  —  Stonewall  Jackson’s  Death.  —  Invasion  of  Pennsylvania. 

_ The  Call  for  a  Leader.  —  Gettysburg.  —  Sanitary  Commission.  —  Horrors  of  a  Battle- 

field. —  Narrative  of  an  Eye-witness.  —  A  Modern  Sidney. — The  Consecration  of  Get¬ 
tysburg  . 524 

CHAPTER  XLVII1. 

RIOTS  IK  KEW  YORK  CITY. 

Drafting.  — Traitors  in  the  North.  —  A  Peace  Party. —Beginning  of  the  Draft.  — The 
Mob. —Destruction  of  Private  Property. —Mob  Violence  is  suppressed  .  .  .530 


CHAPTER  XLIX. 

EFFORTS  TO  TAKE  CHARLESTOK. 

Three  Strongholds  of  the  Enemy.  —  Monitors  in  Charleston  Harbor.  —  Folly  Island.  —  The 
Storming  of  Wagner.  —  Robert  Shaw  “buried  under  his  Niggers.”  —  The  Swamp  An¬ 
gel. —  Fall  of  Wagner . 533 


CHAPTER  L. 

GUERRILLA  RAIDS. 

John  Morgan. — Raid  into  Indiana. — A  Plucky  Colonel. — Ohio  at  Morgan’s  Mercy. — 
Capture  of  Morgan. — Morgan’s  Escape  from  Prison. — Quantrell  and  bis  Ruffians. — 

The  Sack  of  Lawrence.  — A  Hideous  Butchery . 537 

CHAPTER.  LI. 

CHATTAKOOGA  AKD  LOOKOUT  MOUKTAIK. 

Chattanooga  Valley.  —  The  Gateway  of  the  Mountains.  —  Mission  Ridge. —  Defeat  of 
Union  Troops.  —  “  Hold  Chattanooga,  or  starve.”  — Battle  in  the  Clouds.  — The  Rebels’ 
last  stand. — Victory  for  the  Nation . 540 


CHAPTER  LII. 

KILPATRICK’S  RAID. 

Prison  Pens.  —  Their  Horrors.  —  Kilpatrick  and  Dahlgren.  —  Dahlgren  lost  in  the  Woods. 

—  Shot  from  an  Ambush.  —  Robbing  his  Body.  —  Return  of  Kilpatrick  .  .  .  544 

CHAPTER  LIII. 

GRAKT  IK  VIRGIKIA. 

Old  Virginia.  —  Lincoln’s  Passes  to  Richmond.  —  First  Meeting  of  Grant  and  Lincoln. 

—  A  Baulky  Team. —Hard  Times  in  Richmond.  —  The  Wilderness.  —  “Grant  not  a 

Retreating  Man.”  —  Slow  “  Hammering.”  —  “  We  will  fight  it  out  on  this  Line  ”  .  541 

CHAPTER  LIV. 
sheridak’s  ride. 

General  Phil.  Sheridan.  —  Jubal  Early’s  Raid. — Sheridan  “Goes  in.”  —  The  Ride  from 
Winchester.  —  The  Army  settles  round  Petersburg.  —  A  Mine  exploded.  —  A  Pit  of 
Death . 55S 


CONTENTS. 


XIX 


CHAPTER  LY. 


THE  WAR  IN  THE  WEST. 


Red  River  Expedition.  —  Forrest’s  Raid. 
End  of  the  Struggle  in  Missouri 


—  Butchery  at  Fort  Pillow.  —  Secret  Societies.  — 
. 557 


CHAPTER  LVI. 

NAVAL  ENGAGEMENTS. 

A  Confederate  Navy. —Ships  built  in  English  Ports.  —  The  Alabama.  —  Fight  with  the 
Kearsarge.  —  Story  of  a  Brave  Sailor.  —  Collins  violates  Neutrality  Laws. —The  Bat¬ 
tle  of  Mobile  Bay.  —  Farragut  lashed  to  the  Main-top.  —  The  Gulf  is  Ours  .  .  .560 

CHAPTER  LVII. 

ON  TO  ATLANTA. 

William  T.  Sherman.  —  The  Three  Armies.  —  Rebel  Generals.  —  The  Army  tights  its 
Way  to  Atlanta.  —  McPherson  killed.  —  “Atlanta  is  Ours  and  fairly  Won.’’  — Designs 
against  Nashville.  —  “  Old  Reliable.”  —  Nashville  saved . 564 

CHAPTER  LVIII. 

THE  MARCH  TO  THE  SEA. 

The  Army  begins  its  March.  —  The  Army  Battle  Hymn.  —  The  Land  of  Plenty. —Prison 
Pen  at  Millen. —  “Old  Glory.” — The  Sight  of  the  Sea. — Lincoln’s  Christmas  Pres¬ 
ent.  —  Sherman  goes  North.  —  Burning  of  Columbia.  —  Charleston  restored  to  the  Na¬ 
tion.  —  Nearing  the  End  of  the  March.  — The  Forlorn  Hope  of  Johnston. —It  is  baf¬ 
fled  at  Bentonsville.  —  Sherman  joins  Grant . 569 

CHAPTER  LIX. 

LAST  FLASHES  OF  WAR. 

Mobile  taken.  —  “Remember  Fort  Pillow.”  — The  Last  Stand  at  Selma.  — The  Post  before 
Petersburg.  —  Lee’s  last  Attempt.  —  Five  Forks.  —  Confusion  in  Richmond.  —  Lee’s 
Surrender  to  Grant.  —  The  last  Parade.  —  The  Cruel  War  is  over . 576 

CHAPTER  LX. 

THE  ASSASSINATION. 

The  Joy  of  the  Nation. — Last  Speech  of  Lincoln.  —  In  the  Theatre.  —  The  Murder. — 
Seward’s  attempted  Assassination.  —  The  Last  Martyrs  to  Rebellion.  —  The  Murderer 
at  Bay.  —  His  Death.  —  Fate  of  the  Conspirators . 582 

CHAPTER  LXI. 

TIIE  ACCESSION  OF  ANDREW  JOHNSON  AND  THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  GRANT. 

Andrew  Johnson  succeeds  Lincoln.  —  The  Atlantic  Cable  laid.  —  Reconstruction  of  the 
South. — Attempt  to  Impeach  the  President. — Purchase  of  Alaska  and  St.  Thomas 
Island.  —  The  Thirty-seventh  State.  —  Jefferson  Davis.  —  Election  of  Grant  and  Colfax. 

—  The  Xu  Klux  Klan.  — The  Death  of  Edwin  M.  Stanton . 586 

CHAPTER  LXII. 

EVENTS  FROM  1869  TO  1872. 

The  Pacific  Railway  finished.  —  The  Enemies  of  the  Work. —  Indian  Outrages.  —  The 
Slaughter  at  Fort  Philip  Kearney.  —  Peace  and  War  Measures.  —  Death  of  George  H. 
Thomas.  — Fires  in  Chicago  and  the  Northwest . 592 


XX 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  LXIII. 

LATEST  EVENTS. 

Decoration  Day.  —  The  Alabama  Claims,  and  their  Arbitration.  — Election  of  Grant  and 
Wilson. — Death  of  Horace  Greeley. — Great  Fire  in  Boston.  —  The  Modoc  War. — 
Hanging  of  Captain  Jack.  —  The  Capture  of  the  Virginius. —  Shooting  of  American 
Citizens.  —  Death  of  Charles  Sumner.  —  Louisiana  Troubles.  —  Celebration  of  Battles 
of  Lexington  and  Bunker  Hill.  —  The  National  Centennial . 

APPENDIX. 


597 


The  Centennial  International  Exhibition  at  Philadelphia 


.  609 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


PAGE 

Discovery  of  the  Hudson  River  Frontispiece 


A  Northman’s  Vessel . 26 

Christopher  Columbus . 27 

The  Ocean  and  Islands  between  Western 
Europe  and  Eastern  Asia  (from  the 
Map  of  Martin  Behaim,  1492)  ...  29 

Columbus  before  the  Council  ....  30 

The  Fleet  of  Columbus  . . 31 

Isabella . 34 

Amerigo  Vespucci . 35 

Balboa . 40 

Ferdinand  de  Soto . 45 

Sebastian  Cabot . 50 

Verrazano . 51 

Cartier’s  Ship . 52 

French  Nobleman  in  1540  .  53 

English  Gentleman,  1580  59 

Sir  Walter  Raleigh . 59 

Drake’s  Ship . 62 

Indian  Wigwam . 67 

American  Deer . 68 

Indian  Weapons . 70 

Medicine  Dance . 71 

Indian  Pipes . 72 

Building  Jamestown . 74 

John  Smith . .  .  74 

Pocahontas . 84 

Tobacco  Plant . 86 

A  Puritan . 93 

Pilgrims  Embarking . 95 

The  Mayflower . 95 

Pilgrim  Costumes . 96 

Peaceful  Overtures  from  Indians  ...  97 

Carver’s  Chair . 99 

Signatures  of  Pilgrims . 99 

Lej'den  Street,  Plymouth,  Massachu¬ 
setts,  in  1874  .  100 

Signatures  of  Massachusetts  Bay  Colo¬ 
nists  . 101 

John  Eliot’s  Signature . 102 

Roger  Williams . 104 

Early  New  England  House  .  ...  k  105 

Early  Meeting-house . 109 

Dutch  Windmill . 110 

Henry  Hudson . Ill 


r  AGS 


The  Half-moon . 112 

A  Dutchman,  1660  114 

Peter  Stuyvesant . 116 

New  York  in  1664  .  118 

Lord  Baltimore . 119 

William  Penn . 124 

Penn’s  Assembly  House . 125 

General  Oglethorpe . .  .  126 

King  Philip . 130 

Palisaded  Buildings . 131 

Cave  of  the  Regicides . 132 

Indian  Attack  .........  147 

Braddock’s  Head-quarters  in  Virginia  .  160 

Braddock . 162 

Evangeline . 163 

Acadians  leaving  Home . 164 

Sir  William  Johnson . 164 

Block-house  on  Lake  Erie . 165 

Block-house . 166 

Lord  Howe  . . 170 

General  Wolfe . 173 

A  Boston  House . 175 

Spinning-wheel . 176 

A  Dutch  Household  in  New  York  .  .  .  180 

American  Stage-coach . 178 

Cotton  Plant . 185 

William  Pitt . 186 

James  Otis . 188 

Patrick  Henry . 189 

Patrick  Henry  before  the  Assembly  .  .  190 

Badge  of  Sons  of  Liberty . 191 

Faneuil  Hall . 192 

Samuel  Adams  ...  195 

Paul  Revere’s  Ride . 201 

George  Washington .  205 

Benjamin  Franklin . 206 

John  Hancock . 208 

Joseph  Warren . 210 

Plan  of  Bunker  Hill,  and  Monument  .  211 

General  Putnam . 212 

The  Stars  and  Stripes . 219 

General  Moultrie . 220 

Liberty  Bell . 221 

Independence  Hall . 222 

General  Burgoyne . 232 


XXII 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Joseph  Brant .  ...  233 

l’hilip  Schuyler . 236 

General  Gates . 237 

Count  D’E-taing . 241 

Count  Pulaski . 244 

Paul  Jones . 246 

Engagement  of  the  Bon  Honnne  Richard 

with  the  Serapis . 247 

Francis  Marion . 252 

Benedict  Arnold . 254 

Major  Andrd . 255 

Henry  Lee . 258 

Baron  de  Kalb . 260 

Kosciusko . 261 

Nathanael  Greene . 262 

Women  intercepting  Dispatches  .  .  .  264 

Lafayette . 270 

Roehambeau . 271 

Plan  of  Siege  of  Yorklown . 272 

Cornwallis . 273 

John  Jay . 277 

Robert  Morris . 278 

General  Knox . 280 

George  Washington  .  - . 283 

Martha  Washington . 284 

Inauguration  of  Washington  ....  285 

New  Settlers . 289 

Daniel  Boone . 290 

John  Adams . 295 

Thomas  Jefferson . 297 

The  Untrod  Prairie . 299 

Decatur  burning  the  Philadelphia  .  .  303 

Lieutenant  Decatur . 305 

Mohammedan  Soldier . 306 

Alexander  Hamilton . 307 

Aaron  Burr . 308 

Robert  Fulton . 309 

Fitch’s  Philadelphia  and  Trenton  Packet  310 

Fulton’s  Clermont  Stpamer . 310 

James  Madison . 311 

Felucca  Gun-boat . 316 

Captain  Lawrence . 327 

Oliver  II.  Perry . 330 

Cockburn’s  Fleet  sailing  up  the  Potomac  335 

Fort  McHenry . 338 

Commodore  Macdonough . 339 

Plan  of  Battle  of  New  Orleans  .  .  .  344 

James  Monroe . 346 

J.  Q.  Adams . 348 

Pioneers  traveling  West . 349 

Andrew  Jackson . 353 

Oliver  Evans’s  Road  Engine  ....  354 
First  Railway  Passenger  Engine  .  .  .  355 

First  Railway  Coach . 356 

John  C.  Calhoun .  .  360 

Henry  Clay . 361 

Daniel  Webster . 362 

The  Palmetto . 363 

Osceola . 364 


Indians  moving  West . 365 

Martin  Van  Buren . 367 

William  Henry  Harrison . 368 

John  Tyler . 369 

Samuel  F.  B.  Morse . 371 

Mexican  Farm-house . 373 

Sam  Houston . 374 

The  Spanish  Bayonet . 380 

Prairie  Dogs . 381 

Mexican  Town . 382 

Conquest  of  New  Mexico . 383 

Kit  Carson . 385 

Santa  Anna . 387 

Plan  of  Intrenchments  at  Vera  Cruz  .  390 

Winfield  Scott . 391 

Zachary  Taylor . 397 

San  Francisco  in  1849  398 

Scenery  in  California  —  Yosemrte  Falls  399 

Mining  in  California . 401 

Millard  Fillmore . 402 

Picking  Cotton . 411 

Sugar-cane . 412 

Franklin  Pierce . 417 

John  Brown . 421 

James  Buchanan . 424 

Lawrence,  Kansas,  in  1857  .  425 

John  C.  Frdmont . 426 

Abraham  Lincoln . 432 

Jefferson  Davis . 434 

Sand  Bag  Battery  at  Fort  Moultrie  .  .  438 

Robert  Anderson . 439 

Banner  of  South  Carolina . 440 

Fort  Sumter  after  Bombardment  .  .  440 
Setting  out  for  the  Army . 441 


Union  Square,  New  York,  April,  1861  .  445 


Federal  Hill . 447 

The  Secession  Flag . 449 

Zouave . 450 

Ephraim  E.  Ellsworth . 451 

Exodus  of  Slaves . 452 

An  Army  Forge . 453 

Carrick’s  Ford . 455 

Robert  E.  Lee . 456 

Residence  of  Jefferson  Davis  ....  458 

The  Stone  Bridge . 459 

Stonewall  Jackson . 460 

A  Cannon  Truck . 462 

Hauling  Cannon . 463 

George  B.  McClellan . 468 

Ulysses  S.  Grant . 472 

Foote’s  Flotilla . 474 

Grant’s  Head-quarters  at  Fort  Donel- 

son . 475 

The  Merrimack  attacking  the  Cumber¬ 
land  . 480 

Pittsburg  Landing . 483 

Pickets  on  Duty . 484 

Building  the  Canal . 487 

Fort  Massachusetts  on  Ship  Island  .  .  490 


XX111 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Ram  attacking  Union  Vessel  below  New 


Orleans . 491 

Levee  at  New  Orleans . 492 

Quaker  Gun . 496 

War  Balloon . *00 

Barbara  Frietchie . 501 

Barbara  Frietchie’s  House . 502 

Harper’s  Ferry . 504 

Antietam  Battle-field . 505 

Ruins  of  Fredericksburg . 507 

Mules  carrying  Wounded  Men  .  .  .  513 

Thirteen-inch  Mortar . 518 

Abatis . 519 

A  Louisiana  Swamp . 523 

Army  Huts . 524 

George  G.  Meade . 527 

Drafting  Wheel . .  .  530 

An  Armored  Lookout . 534 

The  Swamp  Angel . 536 

Lawrence,  after  Quantrell’s  Raid .  .  .  539 

Lookout  Mountain,  and  Chattanooga 
Valley . 541 


Libby  Prison . 545 

Bullet-proof  in  Woods . 546 

Union  Envelope . 547 

Grant’s  Head-quarters  in  the  Wilderness  550 

Hand  Litter . 551 

Virginia  Cavalryman . 554 

Foragers  at  work . 555 

Philip  H.  Sheridan . 555 

Sheridan’s  Head-quarters  at  Winchester  557 

David  G.  Farragut . 563 

The  Hartford . 563 

William  T.  Sherman . 565 

Leonidas  Polk . 565 

Summit  of  Kenesaw  Mountain  .  .  .  566 

Prison  Pen  at  Millen . 571 

Ruins  at  Charleston . 573 

Redoubt  and  Ditch  at  Mobile  ....  576 

Ruins  at  Selma . 578 

Lee’s  Residence . 579 

Andrew  Johnson . 583 

The  National  Capitol . 583 

William  H.  Seward . 584 


PART  I. 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  COLONIES  :  FROM  INFANCY  TO 

INDEPENDENCE. 


THE 


HISTORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 

- »- 

PART  I. 

THE  STORY  OF  THE  COLONIES:  FROM  INFANCY  TO  INDE¬ 
PENDENCE. 

CHAPTER  I. 

DISCOVERY  OF  AMERICA. 

Christopher  Columbus.  —  The  Route  to  the  East.  —  Columbus  wishes  to  sail  Westward  to 
India.  —  He  applies  to  Portugal  and  Genoa.  —  Finally  Aided  by  Isabella  of  Spain.  —  Sets 
Sail  'from  Palos. — Incidents  of  Voyage. — Discovers  West  Indies.  —  Riches  of  New 
World.  —  Second  Voyage. 

T  T  is  almost  impossible  to  believe  that  less  than  four  hundred 
years  ago  this  whole  great  country  of  ours  was  a  vast  unknown 
wilderness ;  that  the  people  in  Europe  and  Asia  did  not  even 
know  that  there  was  any  land  here,  but  supposed  the  Atlantic 
was  a  broad  spreading  ocean  reaching  from  the  shores  of  Europe 
into  unknown  space ;  that,  although  there  were  schools,  and  books, 
and  maps  of  the  earth’s  surface,  learned  men  in  Europe  and  Asia 
were  still  disputing  whether  the  earth  were  round  or  flat,  and  no 
person  in  all  their  schools  or  cities  dreamed  that  these  two  great 
Continents,  of  North  and  South  America,  had  any  place  in  the 
earth’s  geography.  It  is  difficult  to  believe,  is  it  not  ?  Yet  it  is 
true.  The  land  of  the  Western  Hemisphere  was  a  new  discovery 
in  the  history  of  the  globe.  Hence  it  was  called  The  New 
World,”  while  Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa,  are  called  “  The  Old 
World.” 

Many  nations,  and  many  different  sailors,  have  claimed  the  honor 
of  being  the  first  to  discover  the  Americas.  Some  of  the  North¬ 
men,  both  Icelanders  and  Norwegians,  have  traditions  that  their 
ships  had  sailed  across  the  Atlantic,  and  some  of  their  people  set¬ 
tled  here,  and  even  built  houses  and  forts  in  North  America,  hun¬ 
dreds  of  years  ago. 

But  the  honor  of  sailing  forth  on  purpose  to  find  an  unknown  land, 


26 


TIIE  STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


of  setting  foot  upon  its  shores,  and  then  sailing  back  to  Europe  to 
tell  the  whole  world  that  such  a  country  did  exist,  and  was  really 
found,  belongs  only  to  one  man.  His  name  is  celebrated  in  civilized 
countries  of  all  languages  and  races.  You  must  never  forget  it 
from  this  time  forth.  He  was  called  Christopher  Columbus. 

Columbus  was  born  in  the  year  1435,  in  the  town  of  Genoa, 
Italy.  He  was  an  Italian  sailor.  In  those  days  nearly  all  the  towns 
on  the  Italian  sea-coasts  belonged  to  separate  states,  and  were  each 
famous  for  their  commerce.  So  a  great  many  of  the  boys  born  there 
were  brought  up  to  follow  the  sea.  It  was  thought  necessary  that 
they  should  have  some  knowledge  to  fit  them  for  that  trade,  there¬ 


fore  when  Columbus  said  he  should  like  to  be  a  sailor,  his  father, 
who  was  a  poor  man,  either  a  wool-comber,  or  cloth-weaver  by 
trade,  sent  him  to  school  to  study  mathematics  and  geography  (such 
as  they  knew  in  those  days),  and  the  rudiments  of  navigation. 
Columbus  could  not  have  had  time  to  get  a  very  thorough  knowl¬ 
edge  of  these  branches,  however,  for  he  was  only  fourteen  years  old 
when  he  began  to  go  to  sea. 


DISCOVERY  OF  AMERICA. 


27 


As  there  were  a  good  many  ships  engaged  in  the  traffic  be¬ 
tween  different  states  and  cities,  especially  those  which  bordered  on 
the  Mediterranean,  it  happened  there  was  a  good  deal  of  quarreling 
and  many  battles.  And  as  there  were  not  so  good  laws  regulating 
commerce  as  we  have  nowadays,  there  were  many  pirates  con¬ 
stantly  to  be  met  with  in  sailing  on  the  seas.  Consequently  the 
life  of  a  sailor  was  full  of  daring  and  adventure,  and  he  learned 
not  only  how  to  manage  his  ship,  but  to  defend  it,  and  to  attack  and 
do  battle  with  other  ships. 

Columbus  went  to  sea  with  a  warlike  old  uncle  of  his,  and  saw 
many  an  exciting  sea-fight.  Before  he  was  twenty  he  had  assisted 
in  many  such  battles,  and  was  at  that  age  no  inexperienced  warrior. 
He  was  not  a  man  of  warlike  spirit,  however.  On  the  contrary, 
he  seems  to  have  been  a  quiet,  thoughtful,  earnest  man,  full  of 
noble  and  lofty  enthusiasm. 

In  those  days  it  was  as  if  the  air  was  full  of  discovery  and  adven¬ 
ture.  People  were  all  the  time  talking  about  new-found  islands, 
and  far-off  countries, 
of  wonderful  eastern 
lands,  and  of  new 
routes  upon  the  sea. 

Kings  took  great  in¬ 
terest  in  the  pursuits 
of  navigators,  and 
often  fitted  out  ships 
for  voyages  of  explo¬ 
ration.  The  Portu¬ 
guese  sovereigns,  es¬ 
pecially,  had  been 
noted  for  their  gen¬ 
erosity  to  mariners, 
and  to  Portugal  Co¬ 
lumbus  came  to  live 
when  he  was  a  man 
thirty-five  years  old. 

In  Lisbon,  the  cap¬ 
ital  of  Portugal,  he 
met  a  lady  whom  he 

*J  .  Christopher  Columbus. 

loved  and  married. 

This  lady’s  father  had  been  a  sailor  too,  and  ljad  left  many  maps 


28 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


and  books  relating  to  navigation,  which  came  into  the  hands  of 
Columbus.  So  he  spent  much  time  in  poring  over  these  books  and 
charts,  and  tracing  out  new  routes  which  might  be  sailed  over. 

What  Columbus,  and  all  other  navigators  of  his  time  most 
wished,  was  to  discover  a  direct  passage  by  sea  to  India  and  China, 
the  rich  eastern  countries  with  which  Europe  traded  for  all  kinds 
of  precious  stuffs  and  spices.  The  only  known  sea  way  to  India  was 
thac  found  by  sailing  through  the  Mediterranean  Sea  to  the  Isthmus 
of  Suez  which  joins  Asia  to  Africa,  and  crossing  that  to  embark 
upon  the  Red  Sea,  and  thus  sail  into  the  Indian  Ocean.  You  can 
see  by  looking  on  the  map  that  this  was  not  a  convenient  route,  be¬ 
cause  the  ships  had  to  be  unloaded  on  one  side  of  the  Isthmus, 
which  is  seventy -five  miles  wide,  and  all  the  goods  conveyed  across 
it  in  caravans. 

In  the  imagination  of  the  people  in  Europe,  India  was  a  country 
overflowing  with  riches.  The  sovereigns  in  Europe  constantly  heard 
rumors  of  a  wonderful  Prester  John,  who  ruled  over  a  kingdom 
abounding  in  gold  and  precious  stones,  where  the  land  streamed 
with  honey  and  in  which  ran  rivers  of  milk.  There,  too,  they 
thought  the  Garden  of  Eden  still  existed,  and  they  believed  that 
there  was  the  fountain  which  would  make  all  who  drank  of  it  young 
and  happy. 

Nearly  two  hundred  years  before  the  time  of  Columbus,  a  great 
traveler  named  Marco  Polo  who  had  lived  in  India  and  China, 
brought  back  glowing  accounts  of  the  magnificence  of  the  Khan  of 
Tartary,  whose  kingdom  was  in  the  east ;  and  of  the  great  cities  in 
China  and  Japan. 

Columbus  heard  and  read  all  these  things,  and  reasoned  that  if  the 
world  was  round,  by  sailing  west,  one  could  certainly  approach  the 
shores  of  Asia.  He  also  reasoned  that  there  must  be  land  between 
Europe  and  Asia,  which  would  be  passed  on  the  way  westward. 
But  he  did  not  realize  how  large  this  globe  was,  nor  that  there  was 
a  great  continent  like  North  and  South  America  on  the  other  side  of 
the  Atlantic  Ocean. 

Thinking  over  all  the  stories  of  travelers  and  sailors,  which  he 
had  read  and  heard,  it  became  his  great  desire  to  make  a  voyage 
westward ;  and  as  he  had  no  means  of  his  own  to  fit  out  ships,  he  re¬ 
solved  that  he  would  lay  his  plans  and  wishes  before  some  sovereign 
and  ask  his  help  in  the  matter.  Good  Prince  Henry  of  Portugal, 
who  had  done  much  for  discovery,  was  dead.  His  name  had  made 


DISCOVERY  OF  AMERICA. 


29 


Portugal  famous  for  enterprises  on  the  sea,  and  Columbus  went  first 
to  his  nephew,  King  Alphonso,  and  laid  his  plans  before  him.  But 


Alphonso  was  at  war,  and  could  not  listen  to  him.  Then  he  asked 
Genoa,  his  native  city,  to  fit  him  out  with  ships,  but  it  was  too  busy 


30 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


with  commercial  affairs,  and  thus  lost  the  great  honor  which  its  son 
was  able  to  confer  on  it. 

After  a  time  Alphonso  of  Portugal  died,  and  was  succeeded  by 
John  II.  Columbus  went  to  him  with  his  plans.  He  listened  atten¬ 
tively,  but  after  hearing  all  Columbus  had  to  say  the  king  did  a 
very  base  and  treacherous  thing.  Columbus  wanted  to  have  a  gen- 


Columbus  before  the  Council. 


erous  reward,  and  high  titles  secured  to  him,  in  case  he  discovered 
this  country,  and  King  John  did  not  wish  to  give  him  all  he  asked. 
He  therefore  obtained  from  Columbus  all  his  plans,  charts,  and  di¬ 
rections  for  sailing,  and  then  privately  fitted  out  a  fleet  and  sent  it 
in  the  track  described.  An  expedition  so  basely  conceived  did  not 
deserve  success :  the  ships  were  wrecked  and  partly  destroyed  ;  and 
on  hearing  of  the  king’s  dishonesty  Columbus  left  his  court  in  dis¬ 
gust.  Years  after,  when  he  had  become  a  famous  discoverer,  King 
John  wrote  and  offered  him  large  inducements  to  return  to  Portu¬ 
gal,  but  Columbus  refused  to  go. 

He  resolved  next  to  go  to  Spain.  And  that  he  might  lose  no 
opportunity  of  finding  a  royal  patron  he  sent  his  brother  Barthol¬ 
omew  at  the  same  time  to  England,  to  ask  Henry  VII.  to  fit  him 
out  on  this  strange  new  voyage. 

His  wife  was  now  dead  and  he  set  out  for  Spain  on  foot,  with  his 
little  son  Diego.  He  was  so  poor  that  he  had  to  ask  help  and  shel¬ 
ter  on  the  way.  His  hair,  which  had  been  gray  at  thirty-five,  was 
now  quite  white,  but  he  had  a  fine  commanding  presence,  and  even 


DISCOVERY  OF  AMERICA. 


31 


though  clothed  in  rags,  he  never  could  have  looked  like  a  beggar. 
Imagine  this  man,  who  is  now  so  famous  in  all  history,  standing 
one  evening  about  dusk  at  the  gate  of  a  convent  in  Spain  holding 
his  son  by  the  hand,  while  he  supplicated  the  prior  to  give  him  food 
and  lodging  for  the  night. 

Fortunately  the  monk  to  whom  he  thus  applied,  was  an  uncom¬ 
mon  man,  and  from  him  Columbus  got  aid  and  counsel.  His  name 
was  Juan  Perez,  and  he  had  formerly  been  the  priest  and  father 
confessor  of  Isabella,  the  reigning  Queen  of  Castile.  Her  husband 
was  Ferdinand,  King  of  Arragon,  and  by  joining  their  dominions 
these  two  consorts  ruled  all  Spain  as  one  sovereign.  Juan  Perez 
advised  Columbus  to  unfold  his  plans  to  them. 

But  the  sovereigns  were  impoverished  by  constant  wars,  and  Fer¬ 
dinand,  who  was  a  cold  dull  man,  was  not  much  moved  by  the  glow¬ 
ing  projects  of  Columbus.  He  spent  many  years  of  vain  hopes  and 
sickening  disappointments  at  the  Spanish  courts.  At  the  last  mo¬ 
ment,  as  he  was  leaving  it  forever,  Isabella  was  inspired  by  one  of 
her  priests  with  a  sudden  enthusiasm,  and  declared  that  Columbus 
should  sail  even  if  she  were  obliged  to  pledge  her  own  jewels  to  fit 
out  his  ships.  Thus  it  happened  that  the  New  World  owed  its  dis¬ 
covery  to  the  generous  ambition  of  a  woman,  and  the  untiring  pa¬ 
tience  and  energy  of  a  single  man. 

With  this  aid  and  by  furnishing  himself  one  eighth  of  the  sum 
required  Columbus  began  his  preparations.  He  made  ready  three 
ships  with  which  to  sail  out  upon  this  unknown  waste  of  waters. 
Not  such  tall  stout  ships  as  you 
now  see  lying  at  our  wharves, 
with  their  broad  sails,  huge 
wooden  sides,  and  spacious 
decks.  These  were  frail  little 
crafts,  not  so  large  as  those 
which  now  navigate  our  rivers 
and  inland  lakes.  The  first  of 
these  three  vessels  was  com¬ 
manded  by  Columbus  in  per¬ 
son,  and  was  called  the  Santa  Maria.  The  second,  called  Pinta , 
had  for  captain  Alonzo  Pinzon,  a  famous  Spanish  navigator.  The 
third  was  the  Nina ,  commanded  by  Vincente  Yanez  Pinzon,  a 
brother  of  Alonzo.  On  Friday,  the  3d  of  August,  1492,  these 
three  little  ships  set  sail  from  the  harbor  of  Palos,  a  sea-port  in 
Southern  Spain. 


The  Fleet  of  Columbus. 


32 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


After  sailing  several  weeks  in  unknown  waters,  the  sailors  were 
dissatisfied  and  uneasy,  and  wished  to  go  back.  It  required  all  the 
authority  of  Columbus  to  keep  them  from  mutiny.  At  length  he 
promised  them,  if  he  did  not  see  land  within  three  days,  he  would 
certainly  turn  back.  And  as  if  to  reward  him  for  his  undaunted 
courage,  signs  of  land  began  at  once  to  appear.  Great  masses  of 
green  weeds  drifted  past  the  ship,  which  they  knew  never  grew  ex¬ 
cept  near  the  shore  ;  and  on  the  11th  of  October  a  branch  of  red 
berries  which  the  dullest  sailor  knew  could  grow  only  on  land,  was 
found  floating  on  the  water.  On  the  12th  of  October,  1492,  they 
discovered  and  set  foot  on  the  island  of  San  Salvador,  one  of  the 
Bahama  group,  lying  north  of  the  West  Indies.  Shortly  after,  they 
discovered  the  island  of  Ilayti,  which  Columbus  called  Hispaniola, 
meaning  “  Little  Spain.” 

After  landing  at  Hayti  and  taking  possession  of  it  for  the  King 
and  Queen  of  Spain,  Columbus  sailed  from  that  island  and  touched 
the  coast  of  Cuba,  which  he  supposed  to  be  part  of  a  large  continent. 
After  this,  without  waiting  to  explore  farther,  he  went  back  to  Spain 
to  report  to  the  two  sovereigns  what  he  had  seen. 

Of  course  when  Columbus  reached  Spain  he  was  received  with 
the  highest  honors.  When  he  told  of  these  green  fertile  islands 
thousands  of  miles  west,  of  the  inhabitants  with  straight  black  hair 
and  copper  colored  skins,  with  head-dresses  of  feathers,  and  faces 
streaked  with  paint ;  of  the  strange  fruits  and  vegetables  and  trees 
they  had  seen ;  all  Spain  was  filled  with  wonder.  Every  one 
thought  the  western  passage  to  Asia  was  now  discovered.  As  yet 
nobody  had  any  comprehension  of  the  size  of  this  new  world  wdiich 
had  been  found,  or  indeed  of  the  size  of  the  globe  at  all.  And  from 
the  belief  that  they  had  landed  very  near  the  Asiatic  coast  they 
named  these  new  lands  the  West  Indies  and  the  inhabitants  Indi¬ 
ans  which  name  they  bear  to  this  day. 

As  soon  as  possible  Columbus  was  fitted  out  for  a  second  voyage, 
and  this  time  he  had  little  trouble  in  getting  sailors.  Everybody 
wished  to  go  to  this  wonderful  land,  which  all  believed  was  teeming 
with  riches.  Stories  were  told  of  pearls  as  big  as  robin’s  eggs  that 
could  be  picked  up  on  the  shores,  and  of  mountains  where  topaz 
and  rubies,  emeralds  and  diamonds,  could  be  seen  glittering  among 
the  rocks.  It  was  difficult  to  keep  any  of  the  young  men  at  home 
now,  who  had  a  taste  for  adventure. 

In  September,  1493,  Columbus  set  out  on  a  second  voyage.  But 


OTHER  VOYAGES  OF  COLUMBUS. 


33 


now  his  ships  were  crowded  with  adventurers  who  did  not  care 
whether  their  discoveries  should  benefit  the  human  race.  What 
they  wished  was  a  fortune,  which  they  hoped  to  get  by  merely  sail¬ 
ing  after  it.  And  they  were  constantly  quarreling  and  bickering 
among  themselves,  and  blaming  Columbus  if  all  did  not  turn  out 
just  as  they  wished  it. 

He  sailed  first  to  the  island  of  Hayti,  and  left  a  colony  there 
which  he  named  Hispaniola.  Then  he  sailed  on,  touched  at  the 
islands  of  Jamaica  and  Porto  Rico,  and  finally  returning  to  Hispani¬ 
ola  left  his  brother  Bartholomew  to  take  care  of  the  new  colony, 
while  he  returned  to  Spain  again. 


CHAPTER  II. 

OTHER  VOYAGES  OF  COLUMBUS. 

Portugal  finds  an  Eastern  Passage  to  India.  —  Columbus  and  the  Egg.  —  Third  Voyage. — 
Touches  the  Continent.  —  Sad  Fate  of  Columbus. 

Portugal  has  not  been  unmindful  of  the  success  of  Spain  in  dis¬ 
covering  America.  For  Spain  and  Portugal  were  at  this  time  the 
two  greatest  naval  powers  in  Europe,  and  were  jealous  rivals.  For 
years  Portugal  had  been  exploring  the  coast  of  Africa  to  try  and 
find  an  eastern  passage  to  Asia.  In  1497  they  were  successful,  and 
Vasco  da  Gama  found  his  way  round  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  and 
sailing  up  the  eastern  coast  of  Africa  reached  India  and  China. 
That  was  a  great  triumph  for  Portugal,  and  almost  matched  the 
triumph  of  Spain  in  her  discoveries.  Three  years  before  Vasco  da 
Gama’s  success,  Spain  and  Portugal  had  divided  the  globe  between 
themselves.  They  drew  up  an  agreement  by  which  Portugal  was 
to  have  all  the  ocean  on  the  east  side  of  a  line  drawn  north  and 
south  1,200  miles  west  of  the  Cape  Verd  Islands,  and  Spain  was 
to  have  all  west  of  this  line.  It  did  not  seem  to  occur  to  them 
that  any  one  had  any  right  to  the  ocean  but  themselves. 

In  the  mean  time  when  Columbus  returned  to  Spain  from  his  sec¬ 
ond  voyage  he  found  the  court  filled  with  fault-finders  who  were 
underrating  the  value  of  his  discoveries.  They  claimed  that  other 
men,  native  Spaniards,  were  making  rich  voyages.  “  Why  should  so 
much  power  and  so  many  rewards  be  given  to  this  foreigner,”  they 
grumbled,  “  when  so  many  of  our  nation  can  do  as  much  as  he  ?  ” 

3 


34 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


There  is  a  story  told  that  on  one  occasion  Columbus  came  upon 
a  group  of  these  enemies  in  the  palace.  He  asked  them,  as  a  merry 
jest,  to  stand  an  egg  on  its  end,  upon  the  table.  Everybody  tried, 
but  like  Humpty  Dumpty  in  the  nursery  rhyme,  all  the  king’s 
men  could  not  make  the  egg  stand. 

Then  Columbus  took  it  and  with  a  delicate  blow  he  broke  the 
shell  a  little  so  the  egg  would  sit  upright. 

“  Ah,  that  is  easy  enough,”  every  one  cried. 

41  When  I  have  shown  you  how,”  answered  Columbus  meaningly. 

It  was  easy  enough  for  others  to  sail  west  and  find  new  countries, 
after  one  man  had  inspired  tlie  nation  with  a  belief  in  unknown 
lands,  and  led  the  way  there  in  his  frail  ships. 

For  the  third  time,  in  May,  1498,  he  embarked  for  America. 
This  time  he  went  to  South  America  and  explored  the  coast.  He 
entered  the  Orinoco  River  and  fancied  he  had  made  a  great  discovery 
there.  In  those  days  every  one  believed  that  the  Garden  of  Eden 
—  “the  earthly  Paradise”  —  still  flourished  in  all  its  beauty.  Co¬ 
lumbus  thought  he  had  drawn  near  it,  and  that  the  Orinoco  was  the 
Gihon  which  was  one  of  the  boundaries  of  Eden. 

When  Columbus  again  landed  at  Hispaniola  he  found  mischief 
had  been  plotted  in  his  absence.  His  enemies  there  who  wanted  to 
rule  the  colony,  had  sent  back  to  Spain  such  stories  of  his  cruelty 
and  tyranny,  and  desire  for  power,  that  the  King  of  Spain  had  sent 
an  officer  named  Francis  de  Bobadilla  to  inquire  into  these  reports, 
and  see  if  Columbus  were  guilty.  The  first  thing  this  brutal  fellow 
did  after  getting  there,  was  to  load  Columbus  with  irons  and  send 
him  back  to  Spain. 

After  he  went  on  board,  the  officers  of  the  ship  which  was  to  take 
him  home  were  ashamed  of  the  conduct  of  Bobadilla,  and  wished  to 

take  oft'  his  fetters.  But  Columbus  would 
not  have  them  removed.  He  would  thus  pre¬ 
sent  himself  to  his  sovereigns.  An  old  Span¬ 
ish  historian  who  tells  his  story,  tells  us  that 
when  the  irons  were  put  on  him  he  said, 
“  Thus  the  world  rewards  those  who  serve  it  ; 
this  is  the  recompense  men  give  to  those  who 
trust  in  them.  Have  the  utmost  endeavors  of 
my  services  ended  in  this  ?  Have  all  my  la¬ 
bors  and  sufferings  deserved  no  more  ?  Let 
me  be  buried  in  these  irons  to  show  that  God  alone  knows  how  to 


NAMING  OF  AMERICA,  AND  OTHER  DISCOVERERS.  35 

reward  and  bestow  favors,  of  which  He  doth  never  repent ;  for  the 
world  pays  in  words  and  promises  and  at  last  deceives  and  lies.” 

And  though  the  king  and  queen  took  off  his  chains  and  restored 
him  to  favor,  the  iron  had  entered  his  soul  and  he  was  never  him¬ 
self  again. 

He  made  one  more  voyage  in  1502.  This  time  he  went  into  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico  and  explored  the  Isthmus  of  Darien,  still  hoping  to 
find  the  long  sought  passage  westward.  But  his  search  was  vain. 
He  planted  a  little  colony  on  the  coast  of  Panama,  and  then  returned 
to  Spain  to  die.  His  patroness,  Queen  Isabella,  was  now  dead.  The 
cold-hearted  King  Ferdinand  neglected  him.  He  lingered  a  few 
months  in  poverty  and  obscurity,  and  died  in  1506,  almost  broken¬ 
hearted.  Seven  years  after,  the  ungrateful  king,  for  very  shame 
at  his  neglect,  put  him  up  a  monument  with  the  inscription,  “  To 
Castile  and  Leon  Columbus  gave  a  new  world.”  “Words,”  says 
Ferdinand,  the  son  of  Columbus,  in  his  life  of  his  dear  father, 
“  words  which  we  do  well  to  mark,  because  the  like  cannot  be  found 
among  either  ancients  or  moderns.” 

So  ended  the  life  of  one  of  the  greatest  men  who  is  celebrated  in 
history. 


CHAPTER  III. 


NAMING  OF  AMERICA,  AND  OTHER  DISCOVERERS. 

Amerigo  Vespucci.  —  The  Brothers  Pinzon. — Gulf  of  the  Three  Brothers. — Florida  discov¬ 
ered.  —  Fountain  of  Immortal  Youth. 


In  studying  the  history  of  discovery,  we  find  that  it  is  common 
to  name  different  bodies  of  land  and  water  after  the  men  who  first 
explored  them  ;  and  it  has  often  been  a  matter  of  wonder  that  this 
continent  did  not  receive  its  name  from 
the  great  navigator  who  discovered  it. 

It  would  seem  only  a  merited  honor  for 
so  great  a  service  to  the  world. 

While  Columbus  was  making  ready 
to  go  on  one  of  his  voyages  he  met  an 
Italian  merchant  in  the  city  of  Seville, 
who  was  interested  in  discovery,  al¬ 
though  he  was  not  himself  a  sailor. 

This  man’s  name  was  Amerigo  Ves¬ 
pucci.  He  was  a  man  of  good  birth, 

well  educated,  and  curious  to  hear  all  Amerigo  Vespucci.- 


36 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


about  the  strange  lands  across  the  ocean.  In  1499  he  joined  an 
expedition  from  Portugal,  going  to  explore  part  of  the  coast  of  South 
America.  On  his  return  he  published  an  account  of  this  voyage, 
and  of  others  that  he  afterwards  made :  and  these  voyages,  written 
in  Latin,  were  printed  in  Germany  early  in  the  sixteenth  century. 
And  because  these  printed  accounts  of  the  discovery  of  a  new  world 
circulated  from  one  place  to  another,  with  his  name  attached  to 
them,  this  country  began  to  be  called  “  the  land  of  Amerigo  (or 
Americus  in  the  Latin  form),  and  after  a  while  changed  to  Amer¬ 
ica.  I  do  not  believe  that  Vespucci  himself  intended  to  take  from 
Columbus  the  honor  of  naming  the  continent.  Indeed,  it  was  not 
until  after  the  death  of  both  that  the  land  began  to  be  generally 
known  as  America. 

But  it  is  often  regretted  that  the  New  World  Columbus  had  dis¬ 
covered  did  not  bear  his  name.  We  often  hear  the  United  States 
called  Columbia.  One  of  our  national  songs  is  “  Hail  Columbia.” 
And  all  over  the  country  there  are  manv  cities  and  towns  named  for 
him. 

Before  the  death  of  Columbus  a  number  of  the  companions  who 
had  shared  with  him  the  honor  of  his  first  voyage,  had  either  joined 
other  expeditions,  or  had  fitted  out  ships  at  their  own  expense,  or 
that  of  any  wealthy  patron  who  would  help  them,  and  set  out  on 
voyages  to  the  west. 

The  most  noted  of  these  were  the  brothers  Alonzo,  Vincente 
Yanez,  and  Francisco  Pinzon.  You  remember  the  two  former  each 
commanded  a  vessel  in  the  first  voyage  of  Columbus.  Alonzo,  the 
oldest  brother,  had  aided  him  in  obtaining  a  crew  and  in  bearing  an 
eighth  part  of  the  expense  of  this  voyage. 

The  Pinzons  were  all  daring  and  expert  sailors.  In  the  year 
1500,  Vincente  Yanez,  who  commanded  four  ships,  led  them  over 
the  equator  southward  to  the  coast  of  Brazil,  and  then  into  the 
mouth  of  the  River  Amazon,  the  largest  river  in  the  world.  Com¬ 
ing  back  to  Spain,  he  fell  among  hurricanes  and  dreadful  tempests 
which  destroyed  two  of  his  ships.  His  fortune  was  nearly  all  ven¬ 
tured  in  this  enterprise,  and  this  voyage  almost  ruined  him.  After¬ 
wards,  in  1506  and  1508,  he  was  among  those  who  were  seeking  the 
western  passage  to  Asia.  In  the  same  year  in  which  Pinzon  dis¬ 
covered  the  Amazon,  the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence  was  first  explored. 
Gaspar  Cortereal,  a  Portuguese,  was  the  first  who  entered  this  gulf. 
He  sailed  past  Canada  and  landed  at  Labrador.  Here  he  took 
away  some  Indians  and  carried  them  to  Portugal  as  slaves.  He 


NAMING  OF  AMERICA,  AND  OTHER  DISCOVERERS. 


37 


first  named  the  coast  Labrador.  Cortereal  returned  on  a  second 
voyage,  and  entering  the  Gulf  never  came  out  again.  His  second 
brother,  who  heard  of  his  loss  from  the  ships  that  accompanied  him, 
set  out  in  search  of  him.  He  too  went  into  the  Gulf  of  St.  Law¬ 
rence  never  to  be  heard  of  any  more.  A  third  brother,  also  in  the 
service  of  Portugal,  wished  to  go  after  his  kinsmen,  but  the  king  re¬ 
fused  him  permission,  saying,  “  he  could  not  afford  to  lose  so  many 
brave  sailors  in  one  place.”  So  he  did  not  go.  But  for  years 
after,  the  place  was  known  as  the  “  G-ulf  of  the  Three  Brothers .” 

The  principal  object  which  impelled  so  many  to  set  out  on  these 
voyages  was  the  desire  for  gold.  The  belief  in  the  riches  of  this 
new  country  was  so  great,  that  ships  without  number  were  sent  to 
bring  back  whatever  of  value  they  could  find.  When  they  could 
not  find  gold  or  jewels,  they  sometimes  brought  back  ship-loads  of 
Indians  to  serve  as  slaves.  Very  soon  they  began  to  load  their 
ships  with  the  fruits  of  the  country,  with  mahogany  wood  or  other 
rare  woods,  and  aught  else  that  was  marketable  in  Europe.  A  few 
men  of  noble  minds,  like  Columbus,  considered  the  great  benefit  it 
would  bring  to  their  posterity  if  they  found  new  lands  and  opened 
up  a  new  route  to  Asia,  but  most  of  these  adventurers  thought  only 
of  paltry  gain  to  themselves. 

Juan  Ponce  de  Leon  was  one  of  the  captains  who  had  sailed  with 
Columbus  in  his  second  voyage  of  discovery  from  Spain.  Some 
time  after  this  he  was  made  Governor  of  Porto  Rico,  one  of  the 
West  India  Islands,  and  went  there  to  reside.  But  just  as  he  was 
comfortably  settled  in  his  governorship,  he  was  attacked  by  two 
very  serious  foes  to  his  happiness  and  power.  These  enemies  were 
sickness  and  old  age. 

Now  Ponce  de  Leon  had  heard  a  legend  of  a  fountain  in  some  un¬ 
known  region  whose  waters,  leaping  up  to  the  sun,  gave  everlasting 
youth  and  health  to  whoever  drank  of  them.  These  waters  were 
called,  “  The  Fountain  of  Immortal  Youth.” 

Poor  De  Leon,  in  failing  health  and  strength,  —  nearly  seventy 
years  old,  his  hair  and  beard  quite  white  with  age,  his  form 
bowed  and  stooping,  —  remembered  this  legend,  and  made  up  his 
mind  to  seek  for  this  wonderful  fountain.  The  Spaniards  were 
quite  ready  to  believe  everything  romantic  and  magical  was  situated 
in  this  strange  country,  which  seemed  to  them  so  full  of  wonders. 
And  many  others  besides  Ponce  de  Leon  readily  believed  that 
somewhere  in  its  borders  they  should  find  this  enchanted  fountain. 


38 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


With  this  hope  he  set  out  from  Porto  Rico  in  the  spring  time  of 
the  year  1512,  with  three  ships  and  a  goodly  company  of  men. 
They  came  in  sight  of  land  on  a  beautiful  Sunday  morning.  It  was 
Palm  Sunday,  when  according  to  the  custom  of  the  Church,  every 
man,  woman,  and  child  at  home  in  Spain  was  carrying  in  his  hand 
as  he  came  out  from  worship  a  little  green  branch,  in  remembrance 
of  Christ’s  entry  into  Jerusalem.  Looking  on  this  new  found  land, 
which  was  covered  with  greenness  and  beauty  to  the  very  water’s 
edge,  and  remembering  what  Sunday  it  was,  De  Leon  named  the 
new  country  Florida,  which  means  “  The  Land  of  Flowers.” 

Of  course  all  their  hopes  were  raised  by  the  sight.  They  thought 
a  land  which  seemed  to  blossom  so  beautifully  without  any  one  to 
nurture  it,  could  only  be  watered  by  the  rills  from  the  immortal 
fountain.  Landing,  they  took  possession  of  it  in  the  name  of  the 
King  of  Castile. 

Then  his  men  began  searching  far  and  wide  for  the  waters  which 
should  restore  Ponce  de  Leon’s  youth.  After  some  time  spent  in 
this  search,  the  Indians  began  to  grow  hostile.  The  Spaniards  never 
knew  how  to  treat  them  in  such  a  way  as  to  gain  their  good-will 
and  friendship.  At  length  De  Leon  concluded  he  would  leave  the 
main-land,  and  go  in  search  of  a  wonderful  island  which  the  Indians 
described,  and  which  he  felt  sure  contained  the  fountain.  In  pur¬ 
suit  of  this,  he  touched  the  Bahamas  and  various  other  islands, 
never  ceasing  in  his  search.  So  long  he  sought,  and  so  vainly,  that 
his  resolution  wore  out  the  robust  strength  even  of  his  hardy  crew. 
But  the  magic  waters  were  never  found.  At  length,  feeble  and 
worn  out  in  body,  he  was  borne  back  to  his  ships,  and  they  sailed  to 
Porto  Rico.  Even  then  his  faith  did  not  desert  him.  Unable  to  go 
farther  himself,  he  left  one  of  his  ships  to  continue  the  search.  But 
this  ship,  after  discovering  the  island  of  Bimini,  forty  leagues  west 
of  the  Bahamas,  came  back  to  Porto  Rico  also,  reporting  that  no 
fountain  had  been  seen,  and  no  traces  of  it  could  be  discovered. 

On  sending  to  Spain  an  account  of  this  new  found  land  of  Flor¬ 
ida,  Ponce  de  Leon  was  made  governor  there  on  condition  that  he 
would  plant  a  colony.  In  1513  he  went  with  two  ship-loads  of  peo¬ 
ple  and  provisions,  and  materials  for  building  a  fort.  But  the  In¬ 
dians,  who  began  to  distrust  the  Spaniards  and  to  grow  jealous  of 
their  power,  tried  to  prevent  the  landing  of  De  Leon,  and  in  the 
fight  he  was  badly  wounded.  He  was  carried  back  to  Porto  Rico 
and  soon  died  of  his  hurts.  Let  us  hope  he  has  long  since  discov¬ 
ered  the  fountain  of  immortal  youth. 


FIRST  VIEW  OF  THE  PACIFIC. 


39 


CHAPTER  IV. 

FIRST  VIEW  OF  THE  PACIFIC. 

Spanish  Colonies.  —  Vasco  Nunez  de  Balboa. — Avarice  of  Spaniards.  —  The  Indians  lead 
Balboa  in  Sight  of  the  Land  of  Gold.  —  The  South  Sea. 


You  remember  I  told  you  of  a  little  colony  which  Columbus  had 
left  on  the  continent  of  North  America  when  he  explored  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico  in  his  last  voyage.  This  colony  had  not  been  successful, 
and  one  or  two  later  attempts  had  been  made  to  plant  a  colony 
there  without  result.  The  Spaniards  had  now  settled  on  all  the 
large  West  India  Islands,  and  had  several  thriving  towns,  among 
which  was  Hispaniola,  the  colony  first  planted  by  Columbus.  In 
1511,  Yasco  Nunez  de  Balboa  joined  an  expedition  which  had  come 
from  Spain,  and  stopped  at  Hispaniola,  where  he  was  residing. 
This  company  sailed  to  the  coast  of  Darien,  and  found  the  last  col¬ 
ony  which  had  been  sent  there,  in  ruins,  and  no  white  man  alive. 
Through  the  influence  of  Balboa  they  built  another  town,  and  called 
it  Santa  Maria  de  Antigua.  This  was  the  first  permanent  colony  ever 
founded  on  the  American  continent.  Balboa  was  made  its  governor, 
and  continued  to  reside  there. 

He  was  very  good  to  the  natives.  The  poor  creatures  had  not 
been  used  to  see  a  Spaniard  so  just,  or  so  disposed  to  keep  peace 
with  them,  and  they  met  his  offers  of  friendship  in  the  same  spirit. 
When  they  found  his  great  desire  was  for  gold,  one  of  the  chiefs 
sent  him  a  large  box  of  that  precious  metal.  This  was  not  the  best 
thing  for  the  peace  of  the  colony,  for  all  the  Spaniards  were  mad 
after  gold,  and  quarreled  over  it,  when  they  got  any,  like  so  many 
fierce  dogs.  This  time,  when  Balboa  had  got  out  the  scales  and 
was  weighing  it  as  evenly  as  he  could,  the  rest  were  snarling  and 
growling  around  him  about  their  shares. 

The  son  of  the  chief,  a  tall  athletic  Indian,  who  had  brought 
them  the  gold,  stood  looking  on  during  the  division.  As  the  quarrel 
grew  hotter  and  hotter,  he  scornfully  overturned  with  his  foot  the 
balance  in  which  they  were  weighing  the  treasure,  and  said  vehe¬ 
mently  :  — 

“Is  it  possible  you  should  value  so  much  a  thing  that  so  little 
deserves  your  esteem  ;  that  you  should  leave  the  repose  of  your 
houses,  and  pass  so  many  seas,  exposed  to  such  dangers,  to  trouble 


40 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


those  who  live  quiet  in  their  own  land  ?  Have  some  shame,  Chris¬ 
tians,  and  do  not  desire  these  things  ;  but  if  you  are  resolved  to  seek 
gold,  I  will  show  you  a  country  where  you  can  satisfy  yourselves.”  1 

Of  course  these  words  excited  the  curiosity  of  Balboa,  and  he 
gave  the  young  chief  no  rest  till  he  should  show  him  this  great  gold 
country. 

Accordingly,  they  started,  one  morning  in  September,  1513,  for 
the  mountain-ridge  which  lay  not  far  west  of  the  colony.  Bal¬ 
boa  with  a  party  of  his  men,  and  the  chief  with  a  band  of  natives. 
The  Spaniards  wore  armor  of  glittering  plates  of  steel,  with  swords 
at  their  sides,  and  the  clumsy  muskets  which  they  carried  in  those 
days  over  their  shoulders  ;  while  the  Indians  had  huge  bows  and 
arrows,  stone  and  wooden  clubs,  as  weapons. 

Just  before  they  reached  the  top  of  the  wooded  ridge  from  which 
the  Indians  said  they  would  see  two  oceans,  Balboa  bade  his  com¬ 
panions  pause  that  he  might  climb  the  steep  alone,  and  so  be  the 
first  Spaniard  who  should  look  upon  the  promised  sea. 

Obediently  remaining,  they  left  him  to  climb  the  last  few  yards 
without  them.  In  a  few  moments  more  he  gained  the  summit,  and 

looking  southward,  beheld  the  broad  expanse,  — 
the  waters  of  the  long  dreamed  of  “  South  Sea,” 
or  Pacific  Ocean,  which  lay,  smiling  and  blue, 
almost  at  his  feet.  Standing  there,  he  could  see 
both  oceans,  only  a  few  miles  apart. 

The  grand  sight  overcame  him,  and  the  Span¬ 
ish  warrior,  bronzed  with  conflict  with  seas  and 
storms,  hardened  with  exposure  and  contact  with 
many  dangers,  fell  prone  on  the  earth  and  wetted 
it  with  his  tears.  Then  calling  to  his  soldiers, 
he  commenced  descending  toward  the  new  found 
ocean.  When  he  reached  the  shore,  he  walked 
knee-deep  into  the  waters,  and  waving  above  them  his  cross-liilted 
sword,  he  took  possession  of  the  ocean  “  in  the  name  of  God,  for 
the  use  of  the  sovereign  majesty  of  Spain.” 

The  land  of  great  riches  which  the  Indians  had  pointed  out  to 
Balboa  from  the  heights  of  Darien,  was  the  kingdom  of  Peru  in 
Soutli  America,  which  was  afterwards  conquered  by  Francis  Pizarro. 

Since  I  have  said  so  much  to  you  about  the  search  after  a  western 

1  These  are  rather  dignified  words  on  the  part  of  the  young  Indian,  and  are  put  into  his 
mouth  by  the  Spanish  monk  Ovalle,  who  tells  the  story  of  Balboa’s  discovery. 


FIRST  VOYAGE  AROUND  THE  WORLD. 


41 


route  to  Asia,  I  am  going  to  make  a  brief  digression,  to  tell  you  how 
this  search  was  ended,  and  give  you  an  account  of  the  first  voyage 
around  the  world . 


CHAPTER  V. 

FIRST  VOYAGE  AROUND  THE  WORLD. 

Magellan  at  Patagonia.  —  The  First  Potatoes  eaten  by  Europeans.  —  The  Straits  of  Magellan.  — 
Death  of  the  Great  Navigator.  —  Return  of  the  Last  Ship  to  Spain. 


Fernando  Magalhaens  —  or,  as  we  call  him,  Magellan  —  set 
sail  from  Spain  in  September,  1519.  Like  Columbus,  the  Pinzons, 
and  so  many  other  daring  navigators,  he  wished  to  find  the  western 
passage  to  Asia. 

He  had  been  one  of  those  who  had  sailed  around  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope,  and  tested  the  truth  that  there  was  an  eastern  route  to  India. 
Then  he  came  back  to  petition  Charles  V.,  Emperor  of  Germany  and 
King  of  Spain,  to  fit  him  out  for  a  western  voyage. 

King  Charles  heard  him  with  favor,  gave  him  five  ships,  two  hun¬ 
dred  and  thirty-four  men,  and  provisions  for  two  years.  That  was 
a  generous  fitting  out,  in  days  when  sovereigns  were  not  over  liberal 
to  the  brave  men  who  risked  life  for  their  glory  and  profit. 

Thus  in  September  Magellan  sailed.  He  reached  South  America, 
and  sailed  in  and  out  the  rivers  on  the  coast  of  Brazil,  hoping  to  find 
there  a  channel  to  the  “  South  Sea.”  When  he  had  exhausted  this 
hope,  he  sailed  along  the  coast  of  Patagonia,  stopping  occasionally, 
and  landing  on  the  shores.  Here  the  Spaniards  saw  a  vegetable 
unknown  before.  It  was  almost  round,  and  had  a  brown  skin.  The 
natives  called  them  “  batatas  ”  or  “  patatas,”  and  “  the}^  looked  like 
turnips,  and  tasted  like  chestnuts,”  so  the  old  historian  of  the  voyage 
tells  us.  The  sailors  ate  them  eagerly  without  cooking  them.  Do 
you  guess  what  they  were  ?  Why,  potatoes,  the  commonest  vegeta¬ 
ble  that  grows,  but  unknown  then  to  the  civilized  world. 

The  Patagonians  looked  like  a  race  of  giants  to  the  Spaniards. 
They  were  very  tall,  the  old  historians  say,  ten  or  twelve  feet  high, 
but  I  fancy  that  is  exaggerated.  Magellan  got  two  on  board  his  ship 
and  carried  them  away,  they  crying  loudly  on  their  god  Setebos  to 
rescue  them.  If  you  read  Shakespeare’s  play,  “  The  Tempest,”  you 
will  find  that  Setebos  is  also  the  god  of  Caliban.  Probably  Shake- 


42 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


speare  had  been  reading  Magellan’s  voyage  just  before  he  wrote  his 
play. 

The  natives  could  not  understand  how  the  white  men  could  be 
so  small  and  sail  such  large  boats.  They  had  an  original  idea  about 
the  vessels.  They  believed  the  boats  were  the  babies  of  the  large 
ship,  and  called  the  latter  the  “  mother-canoes  ”  and  her  boats  the 
little  ones. 

When  Magellan  reached  the  Straits  which  now  bear  his  name,  one 
of  his  vessels  was  lost,  and  another  had  deserted.  This  left  him 
with  only  three  ships.  Slowly  and  cautiously  feeling  their  way  at 
every  step,  they  entered  the  crooked,  winding  straits.  It  was  cold 
and  stormy.  Above  their  heads,  taller  many  times  than  the  masts, 
rose  the  icy  peaks  of  Terra  del  Fuego,  glittering  and  pitiless.  The 
crew  began  to  mutiny,  but  Magellan  resolutely  put  them  down.  “  Do 
I  cry  because  I  am  cold  and  hungry  ?  ”  he  asked  the  murmurers. 
“  Let  a  man  dare  to  speak  of  his  suffering  and  he  dies  at  once.” 

When  at  length  they  came  out  upon  the  sea  that  Balboa  had 
seen  eight  years  before  from  Darien,  they  all  forgot  their  miseries. 
Though  their  mouths  were  so  swollen  from  scurvy  that  they  could 
not  chew  their  food,  they  cried  aloud  for  joy.  This  calm,  placid 
ocean,  so  free  from  storms,  Magellan  called  “  Pacific,”  and  it  bears 
the  name  to  this  day. 

The  ships  sailed  southward  toward  warmer  latitudes,  but  their 
sufferings  had  only  just  began.  Provisions  failed.  They  ate  their 
shoe  leather  and  their  clothing.  They  chewed  sawdust  and  gnawed 
pieces  of  wood.  They  bargained  for  rats,  which  some  lucky  ones 
caught  in  the  hold,  and  sold  as  high  as  a  ducat  apiece.  At  length 
they  reached  some  of  the  South  Sea  islands  and  got  relief. 

But  Magellan,  trying  to  make  Christians  of  the  people  on  the 
Philippine  Islands,  by  fighting  those  whom  he  could  not  convert, 
was  killed.  His  ships  were  left  without  their  rash  but  brave  com¬ 
mander.  One  after  the  other  was  lost,  till  only  one  ship  remained. 
This  was  commanded  by  Sebastian  del  Cano. 

The  lonely  vessel  went  on,  sailing  past  Borneo,  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope,  and  up  the  African  coast,  till  it  reached  Spain.  In  September, 
1522,  just  three  years  from  their  first  setting  out,  they  returned.  Of 
their  two  hundred  and  thirty-four  men,  they  brought  back  eighteen. 
So  ended  the  first  voyage  around  the  globe,  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  in  all  the  history  of  navigation.  From  this  time  forth 
the  practicability  of  reaching  Asia  by  sailing  west  was  proved  be¬ 
yond  a  doubt. 


DISCOVERY  OF  THE  MISSISSIPPI  RIVER. 


43 


CHAPTER  VI. 

DISCOVERY  OF  THE  MISSISSIPPI  RIVER 

Cortez  and  Pizarro.  —  Story  of  Narvaez.  —  Cabega  de  Vaca  crosses  the  Continent Ferdinand 

de  Soto.  —  Grand  Army  of  De  Soto.  —  Story  of  John  Ortiz.  —  The  Great  Mississippi  — 
Burial  of  De  Soto.  —  Return  of  his  Army. 

After  Balboa  had  established  his  colony  on  the  Isthmus  of 
Darien  all  the  coasts  thereabout  were  explored,  and  other  settlements 
made  on  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  Hernando  Cortez,  a  brave  but  cruel 
Spaniard,  went  to  Mexico,  and  found  great  quantities  of  gold  and 
silver  there.  He  oppressed  the  helpless  natives,  and  wrested  from 
them  their  treasures,  treating  them  in  the  most  unjust  and  cruel 
manner.  Francis  Pizarro  followed  the  example  of  Cortez,  in  Peru. 
They  both  acquired  great  wealth,  and  the  fame  of  their  success  went 
all  over  Spain,  and  fired  other  Spanish  adventurers  with  the  desire 
of  making  similar  conquests. 

All  these  Spanish  conquerors  were  devout  Roman  Catholics,  and 
had  one  passion  almost  as  strong  as  their  love  for  gold,  —  this  was 
their  desire  to  convert  the  natives  to  Christianity.  While  they 
plundered  and  pillaged  them,  took  their  goods,  burnt  their  cities, 
destroyed  their  crops,  and  left  these  poor  people  to  starve,  they 
were  all  the  time  setting  up  the  cross  with  the  image  of  the  crucified 
Jesus  upon  it  and  forcing  them  to  adore  it.  What  sort  of  a  religion 
the  poor  natives  thought  it  was  which  seemed  to  justify  so  much 
bloodshed  and  plunder,  I  do  not  know ;  but  I  fancy  they  did  not 
make  very  sincere  Christians,  who  were  driven  to  religion  by  the 
point  of  the  sword. 

After  the  news  of  the  success  of  Cortez  and  the  great  wealth  lie 
was  gaining  in  Mexico,  the  adventurers  remembered  the  country  of 
Florida  which  Ponce  de  Leon  had  visited.  It  was  reported  that 
Florida  was  quite  as  rich  in  gold  as  Mexico ;  and  in  1527  a  naviga¬ 
tor,  named  Pamphilo  de  Narvaez,  got  a  grant  of  Florida  from  Charles 
V.  of  Spain,  and  sailed  thither. 

He  landed  with  his  men  on  the  eastern  coast  of  the  long  penin¬ 
sula  of  Florida.  When  they  went  on  shore  they  found  the  Indians 
disposed  to  be  quite  friendly.  They  told  the  Spaniards  stories  of 
gold  which  could  be  found  in  the  province  of  Apalache,  which  was 
to  the  north  of  them.  Narvaez  went  on  to  Apalache.  But  the  na¬ 
tives  began  to  dislike  and  distrust  the  Spaniards  more  and  more  as 


44 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


they  marched  into  the  heart  of  their  country,  and  finally  became 
bold  enough  to  oppose  their  ill-treatment  of  them.  They  attacked 
Narvaez,  killed  many  of  his  men,  and  refused  to  furnish  him  with 
grain  or  any  kind  of  food.  Then  the  Spaniards  suffered  dreadfully. 
They  killed  their  horses  and  ate  them,  living  all  the  time  in  constant 
fear  lest  the  Indians  should  come  upon  them  in  their  weakened 
state,  and  cutting  them  off  from  the  sea  leave  them  to  perish  of 
hunger.  In  their  desperation  they  resolved  to  build  ships  where 
they  were,  on  the  coast  of  the  province  of  Apalache,  which  was  in 
the  northern  part  of  Florida,  and  from  thence  put  to  sea. 

But  they  had  nothing  of  which  to  build  ships,  neither  timber, 
nor  iron,  nor  cloth  for  sails,  nor  rope  for  rigging.  Lacking  all  these 
things,  they  yet  contrived  to  construct  five  brigantines,  which  seem 
to  have  been  a  kind  of  large  boat  with  sails,  capable  of  holding 
forty  or  fifty  men.  How  they  accomplished  this  is  wonderful  to 
relate. 

From  the  iron  in  their  armor,  their  horses’  trappings,  and  their 
stirrups,  they  forged  saws,  hammers,  axes,  and  other  needed  tools. 
They  actually  made  their  spurs  into  nails,  and  their  swords  into  saws 
and  knives.  They  cut  down  trees,  and  made  timber  for  their  boats. 
They  wove  ropes  from  the  hair  of  the  horses  which  they  had  killed 
for  food.  They  sewed  all  their  shirts  and  other  linen  up  into  sails, 
and  after  such  terrible  labors  as  it  amazes  one  to  think  of,  their  five 
brigantines  were  completed  and  they  went  on  board. 

In  a  short  time  a  great  storm  came  up,  and  the  boat  in  which 
Narvaez  sailed  was  lost  and  never  heard  of  again. 

One  of  these  five  brigantines  was  commanded  by  a  daring  fellow 
named  Cabega  de  Vaca,  and  he  alone  succeeded  in  reaching  the 
main-land  with  his  crew.  On  their  way  they  passed  the  mouth  of 
a  great  river  which  poured  into  the  sea  with  such  force  that  it  car¬ 
ried  earth  and  roots  and  branches  of  trees  with  it.  This  was  prob¬ 
ably  the  first  time  the  Mississippi  River  was  ever  seen  b}r  a  white 
man. 

After  landing  somewhere  on  the  shores  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
Cabega  de  Vaca  and  his  companions  wandered  into  the  wilderness 
which  lay  all  about  them.  They  were  supposed  to  be  utterly  lost 
by  all  who  remembered  them,  when,  eight  years  after,  Cabega  and 
three  companions  turned  up  on  the  Pacific  coast  of  Mexico  in  a 
Spanish  settlement  there  called  Culiacan.  They  had  traveled  across 
the  continent ,  making  friends  with  the  Indians,  and  living  among 


DISCOVERY  OF  THE  MISSISSIPPI  RIVER, 


45 


them  as  one  of  the  tribe  ;  till  at  last,  long  bearded  and  long  haired, 
looking  more  like  savages  than  white  men,  they  found  their  way  to 
this  town  on  the  Pacific. 

When  Pizarro  was  in  Peru,  he  had  with  him,  in  his  army,  a 
captain  named  Ferdinand  de  Soto,  who  had  grown 
very  rich  from  spoils  taken  from  the  Peruvians. 

About  the  year  1535  he  was  on  a  visit  to  Spain, 
and  met  there  Cabe^a  de  Yaca,  who  had  just  come 
back  from  America  after  his  long  sojourn  in  the 
wilderness.  De  Vaca  told  De  Soto  many  stories  of 
this  strange  country,  and  its  wonders,  and  especially 

^  "  l  J  Ferdinand  de  Soto. 

of  the  reports  he  had  heard,  of  gold  that  could  be 
found  there.  De  Soto  was  very  ambitious  to  earn  the  glories  of 
conquest  in  some  rich  land,  as  Cortez  and  Pizarro  had  done  in  Mex¬ 
ico  and  Peru.  After  talking  with  De  Yaca  he  resolved  to  fit  out 
ships  and  go  to  conquer  Florida.  He  was  rich,  so  that  he  easily 
bought  the  governorship  of  Florida  of  the  King  of  Spain,  and  sailed 
off  in  the  track  of  Narvaez  and  De  Leon. 

His  ships  anchored  in  the  Bay  of  Espirito  Santo  (Bay  of  the 
Holy  Spirit)  on  the  28tli  of  May,  1539.  He  had  a  large  fleet, 
nine  vessels  in  all,  and  his  soldiers  numbered  seven  hundred  men, 
most  of  them  mounted  on  horses.  De  Soto  landed  with  his  men, 
dressed  in  full  armor,  which  soldiers  all  wore  in  expeditions  of 
war.  They  took  on  shore  a  great  many  horses  and  swine.  These 
were  the  first  horses  and  pigs  brought  to  North  America.  There 
were  no  such  animals  on  this  continent,  and  De  Soto  first  intro¬ 
duced  them.  Besides  all  the  men  and  animals,  they  carried  on 
shore  provisions  and  supplies  of  all  kinds.  They  had  even  chains 
with  which  to  chain  the  natives  whom  they  should  take  prisoners, 
so  you  can  see  they  did  not  come  with  the  intention  of  inducing  the 
Indians  to  be  their  friends.  After  landing,  De  Soto  sent  back  part 
of  the  ships  to  Cuba  to  return  with  more  provisions,  and  left  the 
rest  in  the  bay  to  guard  it  in  case  they  wished  to  come  back  to  the 
ships. 

Then  they  began  their  march  inland.  The  men  in  their  armor, 
spurred  and  booted,  the  horses  with  heavy  glittering  trappings, 
the  loads  of  supplies,  droves  of  animals,  —  all  to  push  their  way 
through  the  thick  everglades,  the  trackless  swamps,  which  abound 
in  Florida  even  to  this  day.  It  was  a  weary  journey  before  they 
came  in  sight  of  land  which  looked  as  if  it  were  habitable.  When 


46 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


they  emerged  from  the  swamps  and  forests  upon  a  plain  planted 
with  grain,  they  saw  a  party  of  some  ten  or  twelve  Indians  running 
toward  them.  They  were  going  to  fire  upon  and  kill  them,  when  to 
their  surprise  one  of  these  natives  ran  before  the  others  and  throw¬ 
ing  up  his  arms  to  stop  the  attack,  called  out  in  good  Spanish,  — 

“  Good  sirs,  I  am  a  Christian.  Slay  me  not,  nor  these  Indians, 
who  have  saved  my  life.” 

At  this  address  all  the  troop  of  De  Soto  stopped  in  much  amaze¬ 
ment  to  hear  their  own  language  in  these  wilds.  Being  questioned, 
the  stranger  told  them  this  story  :  — 

He  said  that  his  name  was  John  Ortiz,  and  he  was  a  true-born 
Spaniard.  He  had  been  one  of  the  sailors  of  Pamphilo  de  Narvaez, 
when  he  came  to  these  coasts  twelve  years  before  to  explore  Florida. 
He  was  one  of  the  few  who  had  escaped  death  in  this  expedition. 
When  after  long  hardships  he  had  got  back  to  Cuba,  the  wife  of 
Narvaez  was  fitting  out  ships  to  seek  after  her  husband.  John 
Ortiz  sailed  in  this  expedition.  When  they  reached  the  coast  of 
Florida  he  went  on  shore  with  some  of  his  companions  in  a  ship’s 
boat.  Near  that  part  of  the  bay  where  Narvaez  first  landed,  they 
saw  a  stick  set  up  in  form  of  a  cross,  and  thought  it  might  have 
been  set  up  by  him  as  a  token  that  he  had  escaped  from  shipwreck. 

Just  then  some  Indians  who  appeared  friendly  beckoned  them  to 
land.  John  Ortiz  and  one  other  went  on  shore.  But  no  sooner 
had  they  landed  than  these  Indians  attacked  them,  slew  his  compan¬ 
ion,  and  wounded  Ortiz,  while  the  frightened  boat’s  crew  hastened 
back  to  the  ship  believing  them  both  slain.  They  would  have 
killed  Ortiz,  but  that  the  daughter  of  the  chief  begged  for  his  life. 
This  one  white  man  alone,  she  urged,  could  do  no  harm,  and  he 
might  be  useful  to  them.  So  Ucita  —  this  was  the  name  of  the 
chief  —  saved  the  Spaniard’s  life  at  the  pleading  of  his  daughter. 

After  this  Ortiz  lived  for  some  time  with  this  tribe.  He  was 
given  the  strange  office  of  guarding  the  temple  where  the  Indians 
were  in  the  habit  of  placing  the  bodies  of  those  who  had  died.  The 
poor  Spaniard  had  many  bloody  encounters  with  the  wolves,  who 
came  by  night  to  seize  the  bodies  which  were  kept  there. 

At  length  the  daughter  of  Ucita,  the  Indian  princess  who  had  at 
first  befriended  him,  came  secretly  and  told  him  her  tribe  again  had 
designs  upon  his  life,  and  advised  him  to  flee  to  the  kingdom  of  Mo- 
coco,  who  was  a  chief  not  far  distant. 

Mococo  received  him  with  open  arms,  and  for  several  years  Ortiz 


DISCOVERY  OF  THE  MISSISSIPPI  RIVER, 


47 


had  lived  as  one  of  his  tribe.  But  this  good  king  had  promised  that 
if  the  Spaniards  ever  came  thither,  John  Ortiz  should  go  away  freely 
with  them. 

After  hearing  this  story  of  Ortiz,  the  Spaniards  had  an  interview 
with  Mococo,  who  not  only  entertained  De  Soto  well,  but  gave  him 
provisions  to  take  with  him,  and  sent  John  Ortiz  rejoicing  away 
with  his  companions. 

De  Soto  continued  his  march.  It  was  a  very  crooked  route  he 
took,  and  was  changed  and  directed  by  the  natural  obstacles  or  ad¬ 
vantages  in  this  wild  country  through  which  they  went. 

John  Ortiz  was  a  great  addition  to  them,  for  he  knew  many  In¬ 
dian  languages,  and  acted  as  guide  and  interpreter.  The  country 
was  divided  into  kingdoms  or  provinces,  each  with  a  different  ruler. 
They  were  not  very  large,  for  De  Soto  passed  through  a  good 
many  on  his  march  to  the  Mississippi  River.  Their  towns  were 
often  walled  about.  The  walls  were  made  about  breast  high,  of  posts 
thrust  into  the  ground,  and  rails  laid  across  from  one  to  the  other, 
like  rail- fence.  Then  they  were  filled  with  clay,  which  hardened  in 
the  sun.  These  primitive  walls  had  loop-holes  for  firing  arrows. 
But  these  rude  defenses  protected  the  natives  but  little  against 
Spanish  warfare,  and  wherever  the  white  man  went  he  left  havoc 
in  his  track. 

Often  the  Indians  met  them  in  kindness,  gave  them  food,  and  es¬ 
corted  them  on  their  way,  but  generally  there  was  much  bloodshed 
before  the  last  of  De  Soto’s  troops  left  their  boundaries. 

Once  they  passed  through  a  province  ruled  over  by  a  woman. 
It  was  a  beautiful  country,  in  what  is  now  Alabama.  She  treated 
them  most  graciously,  and  gave  them  food  and  buffalo  skins. 

Now  they  began  to  hear  rumors  of  a  great  river  in  front  of  them, 
—  a  river  of  great  riches  and  beauty,  whose  waters  were  yellow 
with  gold.  It  was  more  than  a  year  since  De  Soto  first  landed  on 
tire  coast  of  Florida.  He  had  lost  many  men,  and  very  little  gold 
had  yet  rewarded  his  labors.  So  he  pushed  impatiently  on  toward 
this  wonderful  river. 

One  spring  morning  in  1541,  two  years  from  the  time  they  first 
landed  on  the  coast  of  the  New  World,  they  halted  on  the  banks  of 
the  Mississippi  River.  They  were  weary  and  worn  and  travel- 
stained  ;  the  brightness  was  gone  from  their  armor,  and  the  trap¬ 
pings  of  the  horses  no  longer  glittered  in  the  sun.  But  they  were 
still  hopeful  and  resolute  and  courageous. 


48 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


The  place  where  they  touched  the  river  was  the  point  where  the 
Arkansas  River  unites  with  the  great  father  of  waters.  You  can  im¬ 
agine  it  looked  very  different  to  the  Spaniards  from  what  it  looks 
to-day.  Now  steamboats  ply  up  and  down  day  and  night,  and 
towns  and  cities  dot  its  banks.  Then  the  great  river,  undisturbed 
by  boats  or  ships,  rushed  furiously  on  to  the  sea.  These  are  the 
words  in  which  one  of  De  Soto’s  men  tells  how  it  looked  that  day  :  — 

“  The  river  was  almost  half  a  league  broad.  If  a  man  stood  still 
on  the  other  side,  it  could  not  be  discerned  if  he  were  a  man  or  no. 
The  water  was  of  great  depth  and  of  a  strong  current,  always 
muddy,  and  there  came  down  continually  many  trees  and  timber, 
which  the  force  of  the  water  and  the  stream  brought  down.” 

For  a  year  they  remained  at  this  part  of  the  river.  In  that  time 
De  Soto  crossed  and  recrossed  on  rude  boats  which  they  built,  and 
made  excursions  into  the  interior  of  the  country  west  of  the  river. 
He  spent  one  winter  among  what  are  now  known  as  the  Ozark 
Mountains,  near  the  great  lead  region  of  southwestern  Missouri. 
But  they  were  tired  of  adventure,  and  longed  eagerly  to  get  to  the 
sea. 

Yet  it  seemed  almost  madness  to  think  of  trusting  themselves  to 
this  terrible  swift  current  with  such  rafts  and  boats  as  they  had 
made  to  cross  it ;  and  it  was  as  hopeless  to  think  of  going  back 
through  the  trackless  wilds  through  which  they  had  come,  and 
where  they  had  left  enemies  all  over  their  pathway.  Their  hearts 
began  to  fail.  Finally  De  Soto,  weary  with  devising  hopeless  plans, 
and  heart-sick  with  disappointment,  fell  into  a  fever  and  died. 

The  Spaniards  were  afraid  that  the  Indians  would  discover  the 
loss  of  their  leader,  whom  they  had  told  the  savages  was  a  child  of 
the  sun,  and  could  not  die.  They  hid  his  body  three  days.  Then 
they  dug  a  grave  under  cover  of  a  hut,  but  seeing  some  Indians  look¬ 
ing  at  the  place  where  the  earth  had  been  upturned,  they  secretly 
took  it  up  in  the  night,  and  wrapping  it  in  the  Spanish  mantle  De 
Soto  had  been  used  to  wear,  they  made  it  heavy  with  sand  and 
threw  it  into  the  Mississippi.  There,  after  many  wanderings,  he 
slept  in  peace  at  the  bottom  of  the  mighty  river  he  had  found. 

After  this  the  desire  to  get  upon  the  open  sea,  and  the  prospect 
of  getting  back  to  Spain,  inspired  them  to  great  exertions.  The 
labors  of  Narvaez  were  repeated  by  them.  They  cut  timber,  forged 
iron,  and  built  ships  or  brigantines  to  get  to  sea. 

This  took  them  nearly  a  year,  and  it  was  in  July,  1543,  before 
they  were  ready  to  go  on  board. 


ENGLISH  AND  FRENCH  EXPLORERS. 


49 


Their  departure  showed  the  same  cruelty  to  the  Indians  which 
had  marked  all  their  conduct  to  them.  They  stripped  the  coun¬ 
try  around  of  all  their  corn  and  provisions,  and  when  they  set  out 
they  were  so  abundantly  provided  that  they  cast  corn  before  their 
hogs  which  the  animals  could  not  eat  because  they  were  already  so 
full,  while  the  natives,  robbed  of  the  food  they  had  planted,  fam¬ 
ished  and  despairing,  crowded  the  shores  and  implored  that  some 
of  their  store  should  be  given  back.  Some  of  the  Spaniards,  more 
tender-hearted  than  others,  cast  back  a  small  portion,  but  many 
laughed  in  their  faces,  and  threw  back  jeers  at  their  distress  as  the 
boats  glided  down  the  river. 

After  much  perilous  sailing  they  reached  the  Spanish  settlement 
of  Panuco  on  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  were  received  with  great 
hospitality  by  the  colonists  there.  They  returned  to  Spain  shortly 
after,  and  thus  ended  the  third  expedition  into  Florida.  It  is 
hardly  possible  to  say  which  of  these  seems  most  disastrous  to  the 
captain  who  commanded  it. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

ENGLISH  AND  FRENCH  EXPLORERS. 

Henry  VII.  of  England.  —  Sebastian  Cabot  discovers  North  America.  —  The  French  King  sends 
Ships  to  America.  —  Verrazano  comes  to  New  York.  —  Voyages  of  Jacques  Cartier  to  Can¬ 
ada.  —  His  Ship  lost  in  the  St.  Lawrence. 

When  the  other  nations  of  Europe  beheld  how  rich  Spain  and 
Portugal  were  growing  from  the  spoils  of  the  new  lands  they  were 
sharing  between  them,  they  were  naturally  anxious  to  share  also  in 
the  profits  of  discovery.  Almost  as  soon  as  Columbus  returned 
from  his  first  voyage  Henry  VII.  of  England  was  busily  fitting  out 
ships  for  exploration. 

I  have  told  you  before  that  Columbus  sent  his  brother  Barthol  ¬ 
omew  to  England  at  the  time  that  he  went  to  Spain.  Bartholomew 
had  an  adventurous  journey  ;  fell  among  thieves,  lost  his  money, 
and  reached  England  very  ragged  and  poor.  It  was  a  long  time 
before  he  could  get  decent  clothes  in  which  to  be  presented  at  court, 
and  he  worked  hard  at  map-making  in  London  for  money  to  keep 
himself  from  starvation. 

It  is  claimed  by  English  writers  of  this  period  that  Henry  VII. 


50 


STORY"  OF  OUR  COUNTRY'. 


intended  to  accept  the  proposition  of  Columbus  and  fit  him  out  on 
the  expedition.  If  this  were  so  he  was  so  slow  and  hesitating  in  his 
decision  that  Columbus  had  sailed  from  Spain  and  discovered  Amer¬ 
ica  before  Henry  had  fairly  made  up  his  mind.  When  the  news  of 
the  discovery  came  to  his  ears,  he  set  to  work  briskly  and  sent  out 
an  expedition,  commanded  by  John  and  Sebastian  Cabot,  a  father 

and  son,  who  were  living  in  Bristol,  Eng¬ 
land,  although  they  were  natives  of  Venice. 
Sebastian  Cabot  was  very  young,  probably 
only  eighteen  years  old,  but  he  seems  to 
have  been 

and  was  one  of  the  greatest  navigators  the 
world  has  ever  known. 

They  sailed  almost  due  west,  and  touched 
the  continent  of  North  America  at  Labra¬ 
dor,  before  Columbus  had  found  the  main-land.  The  Cabots,  there¬ 
fore,  were  realty  the  first  Europeans  who  landed  on  these  shores. 
They  took  possession  in  the  name  of  England,  and  sailed  northward 
to  find  a  way  farther  west.  But  the  land  everywhere  presented  a 
firm  barrier  to  their  ships. 

“  I  found  the  land  ramie  all  along  to  the  north,  which  was  to  mee 
a  great  displeasure,"  wrote  Sebastian,  in  his  description  of  the  voy¬ 
age. 

See  how  all  these  navigators  in  their  search  after  the  rich  Indies, 
at  first  scorned  this  poor  continent  of  ours  which  has  turned  out  to 
be  worth  a  dozen  Indies,  in  everything  that  really  makes  the  world 
rich. 

After  Sebastian  Cabot  returned  to  England,  his  father  died,  and 
he  had  sole  command  of  the  expeditions  which  followed.  He  de¬ 
voted  the  greater  part  of  his  life  to  searching  after  the  long  wished 
for  western  passage  to  Asia ;  made  several  voyages  to  the  coast  of 
South  America,  under  the  auspices  of  Spain,  and  finally  went;  back 
to  England  and  spent  his  later  years  in  making  charts  and  maps. 
He  lived  up  to  the  time  of  Queen  Elizabeth  of  England,  and  when  a 
very  old  man,  nearly  eighty,  he  assisted  in  fitting  out  some  ships  to 
seek  for  a  northwest  passage  to  the  Pacific,  went  to  a  parting  ban¬ 
quet  on  the  ship,  and  danced  there  like  a  youth  of  twenty. 

From  this  discovery  of  John  and  Sebastian  Cabot,  England  laid 
claim  to  the  northern  part  of  the  New  World  near  Labrador  ;  Spain 
claimed  Peru  and  Mexico  and  all  the  Orinoco  River  region  ;  and 


the  ruling  spirit  of  the  voyage, 


ENGLISH  AND  FRENCH  EXPLORERS.  51 

Portugal  claimed  Patagonia  and  Brazil,  on  account  of  Magellan’s 
voyage  there. 

Francis  I.  was  at  this  time  king  of  France.  He  had  pressing 
affairs  on  his  hands,  —  a  kingdom  beset  with  civil 
war  and  foreign  war.  But  in  spite  of  his  anxieties 
he  felt  very  jealous  of  the  possessions  his  brother 
kings  of  Spain,  Portugal,  and  England,  were  get¬ 
ting  on  the  new  continent.  When  he  heard  they 
had  divided  the  new  countries  across  the  sea,  he 
cried  out,  “  I  should  like  to  see  the  clause  in  Adam’s 
will  which  gives  them  all  America.” 

In  1524  he  sent  Captain  Juan  Verrazano  to  see  if  he  could  find 
a  corner  where  France  might  gain  a  foothold  on  this  continent. 
Verrazano  sailed  with  four  ships,  but  nearly  all  were  disabled  early 
in  the  voyage,  and  he  finally  crossed  with  only  one  vessel,  —  the 
Dolphin ,  —  the  only  good  ship  of  the  four.  He  touched  America 
near  the  coast  of  New  York  and  New  Jersey,  entered  Long  Island 
Sound,  and  came  up  New  York  Bay.  He  describes  a  beautiful  river, 
which  probably  was  the  Hudson,  but  he  did  not  stop  to  explore  it. 
Coming  out  from  Long  Island  Sound,  he  sailed  northward,  past 
Cape  Cod  and  the  crooked  coast  of  Maine,  and  finally  stopped  at 
the  borders  of  Canada.  From  his  discovery  all  this  region  was  first 
called  “  New  France.” 

Now  as  early  as  1503  the  Portuguese  had  discovered  that  New¬ 
foundland  was  a  wonderful  place  to  catch  fish,  and  that  there  was 
no  end  to  the  number  of  cod  which  swam  around  its  banks.  It  is 
probable  that  Verrazano  carried  back  reports  of  the  great  wealth  of 
fish  in  these  waters,  for  shortly  after  his  return  to  France  we  hear 
of  many  French  ships  off  Newfoundland  Banks.  One  of  the  nobles 
of  the  court  of  Francis  I.  was  allowed  a  certain  sum  of  money  on 
every  ship-load  of  fish  brought  into  French  ports,  and  he  took  good 
care  to  encourage  the  fishing  trade.  For  ten  years  after  Verrazano’s 
visit,  we  hear  little  of  New  France  except  that  the  fishing  sloops 
went  there  every  year  in  numbers. 

St.  Malo  is  a  rocky  little  sea-port  in  the  province  of  Brittany  in 
France,  and  is  famous  for  its  brave  and  hardy  sailors.  Indeed, 
nearly  all  the  dwellers  in  St.  Malo  get  their  living  from  the  ocean, 
which  washes  up  on  their  rock-bound  coast.  Jacques  Cartier  was 
born  and  bred  there,  and  grew  up  to  be  just  the  kind  of  a  man  to 
command  an  expedition  to  America.  In  1534,  just  ten  years  after 


BOSTON  COLLEGE 

FACULTY  LIBRARY 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


Yerrazano,  Cartier  was  fitted  out,  to  see  what  could  be  done  toward 
establishing  a  colony  in  New  France. 

He  went  to  Newfoundland  in  the  track  of  the  fishing  vessels. 
Sailing  around  that  island,  past  the  banks,  he  set  up  a  cross  on  the 
bleak  shores  of  Labrador,  and  traded  with  the  natives  of  that  coast 
and  of  New  Brunswick.  The  Indians  were  so  friendly  with  the 
Frenchmen,  that  one  of  the  chiefs  let  two  young  Indian  boys,  his 
own  sons,  go  back  to  Europe  with  Cartier.  It  was  less  than  five 
months  from  the  time  he  left  St.  Malo  that  he  was  back  again  with 
accounts  of  his  visit. 

In  1535  he  sailed  again  with  three  ships.  But  this  time  he  had 
ill  winds,  which  do  not  seem  to  have  blown  anybody  good.  How¬ 
ever,  they  all  got  into  land  safely  at  last,  and  entered  the  Gulf  of 
the  Three  Brothers,  where  Gaspar  Cortereal  had  sailed  in,  never  to 
be  heard  of  afterwards.  Cartier  gave  this  gulf  and  river  the  name 
of  St.  Lawrence,  because  he  entered  it  on  the  day  which  the  Romish 
Church  has  dedicated  to  the  memory  of  Lawrence,  the  Christian 
martyr.  He  sailed  down  the  river  as  far  as  an  island  on  which  was 
a  wooded  hill.  Climbing  this  hill  to  overlook  the  country,  he  named 
it  Mont-real  (royal  mountain),  and  there  the  city  of  Montreal,  Can¬ 
ada,  was  afterwards  built. 

Cartier  lived  up  there  all  winter  among  the  Indians,  and  lost 
many  of  his  men  from  cold  weather  and  the  scurvy.  The  Indians 
were  very  good  to  them,  and  the  French  traded  with  them  for 

went  back  to  France,  taking  only  two  of  his 
ships.  The  third  had  been  somewhat  disabled 
by  the  weather,  and  he  had  lost  too  many  of 
his  crew  to  man  her  properly,  so  he  left  it 
behind.  In  1848,  only  twenty -six  years  ago, 
and  over  three  hundred  years  after  its  deser¬ 
tion,  this  old  ship  teas  found  sticking  up  in  the 
mud  of  the  St.  Lawrence  River.  Would  you 
not  like  to  have  seen  this  strange  old  craft 
which  had  felt  the  tramp  of  the  sailors  of  St. 
Malo  on  her  decks  three  hundred  years  ago,  and  had  laid  quiet  so 
many  ages  after  its  work  was  done  ? 

Again  Cartier  sailed  with  five  ships  and  men  to  build  a  colony. 
But  on  his  second  voyage  he  had  carried  away  some  natives  to  sell 
as  slaves,  and  perhaps  the  Indians  remembered  that  against  him,  for 


many  fine  furs. 

In  the  spring  he 


Cartier's  Ship. 


FRENCH  ATTEMPTS  AT  SETTLEMENT. 


53 


he  was  not  so  well  received  by  them  this  time.  He  visited  Mon¬ 
treal,  but  without  founding  a  colony,  and  eight  months  after  started 
for  France.  On  his  way  back  he  met  Lord  de  la  Roque,  who  had 
just  been  made  Governor-General  of  New  France,  by  the  king.  La 
Roque  ordered  him  back,  but  Cartier  refused  to  go.  He  went  in¬ 
stead  to  St.  Malo,  and  was  never  heard  of  as  a  discoverer  afterwards. 
De  la  Roque  built  a  fort  on  the  site  of  Quebec,  and  then  he  too 
got  discouraged  and  returned  to  France. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


FRENCH  ATTEMPTS  AT  SETTLEMENT. 


The  French  Protestants.  —  The  Land  of  Flowers.  —  The  Colony  of  Ribault  in  Carolina.  — 
Spaniards  at  St.  Augustine.  —  The  Spanish  massacre  the  French  Colony.  —  Sad  Fate  of 
Ribault  and  his  Companions.  —  Dominic  de  Gourgues.  — He  avenges  the  Murder  of 
Frenchmen. 

This  all  happened  from  1534  to  1542.  Twenty  years  later  there 
was  an  attempt  to  found  a  French  colony  in  North  America.  It 
happened  in  this  way.  There  were  in  France  a  good  many  people 
called  Huguenots,  which  was  only  another  name  for  those  who  were 
of  the  Protestant  religion,  and  did  not  believe  in  the  Roman  Cath¬ 
olic  Church.  Nearly  all  Europe  was  Roman  Catholic  then.  The 
English  nation  had  only  just  got  rid  of  the  Pope’s  authority  and 
gone  to  thinking  a  little  for  itself.  The  Spaniards  were  all  very 
bitter  Romanists,  and  wished  to  put  everybody  to  death  who  did 
not  believe  just  as  they  did ;  the  French  king  was  Roman  Catho¬ 
lic  also,  and  so  were  nearly  all  his  nobles.  Francis  I.  was  dead,  and 
Charles  IX.  was  King  of  France. 

Yet  there  was  one  very  good  Huguenot  nobleman  in  the  court  of 
Charles  whom,  in  spite  of  liis  religion,  the  Romanists 
were  forced  to  respect.  His  name  was  Coligny, 
and  he  was  an  admiral  in  the  French  navy. 

This  nobleman  saw  that  there  was  very  little 
peace  for  the  Huguenots  in  France,  and  accordingly 
he  planned  to  make  a  colony  of  them  in  America, 
where  they  could  find  a  refuge  to  escape  persecu¬ 
tion  in  their  own  country. 

He  obtained  the  consent  of  the  king,  and  first 
made  an  attempt  to  settle  a  colony  in  Brazil.  But 
the  Portuguese  resisted  their  encroachments  on 


French  nobleman  in 
1540. 


54 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


what  they  claimed  as  their  territory.  In  the  year  1562  he  sent  an 
expedition  to  Florida,  commanded  by  John  Ribault. 

All  Europe  had  heard  much  of  the  beauty  of  the  “  Land  of 
Flowers,”  and  it  was  known  the  Spaniards  had  not  attempted  to 
settle  there  since  the  unfortunate  journey  of  Ferdinand  de  Soto. 
The  Spanish  colonies  were  all  in  Mexico  and  South  America,  or  on 
the  West  India  islands.  Therefore  Ribault  determined  to  go  to 
Florida.  As  they  neared  this  far-famed  land,  the  sailors  were  de¬ 
lighted  with  sight  of  its  vernal  shores,  which  sloped  gently  down, 
green  even  to  the  water’s  edge.  A  little  back  from  the  shore 
stretched  a  line  of  dense  forests.  Over  the  trees  ran  flowering  vines 
with  many  colored  blossoms.  They  could  see  gay  plumaged  birds 
and  graceful  deer  in  the  leafy  recesses  of  the  wood. 

On  the  first  day  of  May,  1562,  they  sailed  into  the  St.  John’s 
River  in  Florida.  Ribaidt  called  this  river  the  May,  in  honor  of  the 
month  in  which  lie  entered  it.  Here  he  set  up  a  stone  pillar  look¬ 
ing  out  to  sea,  with  the  coat  of  arms  of  France  engraved  on  it ;  and 
then,  not  quite  satisfied  with  the  place,  he  sailed  northward  past  the 
coast  of  Georgia,  to  Port  Royal  in  South  Carolina.  At  this  point 
Ribault  built  a  fort  which  he  called  Fort  Caroline,  in  honor  of 
Charles  IX.,  and  from  this  fort  comes  the  names  of  the  States  which 
are  now  called  the  Carolinas.  But  at  that  time  you  must  remember 
all  this  country  north  of  Mexico  was  known  as  Florida.  After  es¬ 
tablishing  the  fort  Ribault  returned  to  France,  leaving  thirty  men 
under  command  of  Albert  de  la  Pierria. 

Left  to  themselves  these  Frenchmen  made  merry,  and  formed 
friendships  with  the  Indians ;  but  they  neglected  to  plant  corn  for 
the  harvest,  and  would  have  starved  if  the  natives  had  not  been 
very  generous  with  them  and  given  them  part  of  their  crops.  After 
a  time,  getting  homesick  and  discontented,  they  quarreled  with  each 
other,  and  finally  accused  their  leader,  Albert  de  la  Pierria,  of  cru¬ 
elty,  and  put  him  to  death. 

There  was  a  good  deal  of  sickness  and  suffering  amongst  them, 
and  they  resolved  to  build  a  ship  and  return  to  France.  They  had 
already  a  small  pinnace  —  which  is  a  vessel  propelled  partly  by  oars 
and  partly  by  sails,  —  that  Ribault  had  left  behind.  This  they  took 
in  pieces  for  materials  to  help  build  a  larger  ship.  They  had  also 
some  iron  and  a  forge  in  the  fort,  and  the  Indians  gave  them  ropes 
for  the  rigging,  made  of  grass  and  the  tough  bark  of  trees.  To 
caulk  their  vessel  they  used  the  long  moss  which  hung  from  the 
forest  trees,  and  pitch  was  plentiful  everywhere  on  the  tall  pines. 


FRENCH  ATTEMPTS  AT  SETTLEMENT. 


55 


They  finished  this  ship  and  went  on  board  her,  poorly  provisioned 
for  the  long  journey.  They  suffered  terribly,  and  would  all  have 
died,  most  likely,  if  they  had  not  met  an  English  ship  which  suc¬ 
cored  them,  and  took  the  few  survivors  home. 

In  1564  Admiral  Coligny  sent  out  a  second  colony.  Ribault  did 
not  go  this  time,  and  Rene  de  Laudonniere  commanded  the  fleet. 
They  sailed  for  the  river  which  Ribault  had  called  the  May,  and 
which  you  can  now  find  on  the  map  of  Florida  as  the  St.  John’s 
River.  There  they  found  the  pillar  still  standing  which  Ribault 
had  set  up  on  first  landing  in  America.  Around  it  were  pretty 
little  baskets  made  of  fresh  green  rushes  heaped  full  of  yellow  corn. 
These  offerings  the  Indians  had  placed  around  the  pillar  to  show 
their  reverence  for  it. 

Soon  after  the  French  landed,  the  natives  came  trooping  down  to 
the  shore,  crying  “  Ami,  Ami.'1''  “Ami”  is  the  French  word  for 
friend ,  which  the  natives  had  learned  of  Ribault,  and  repeated  to 
show  they  had  not  forgotten  the  former  coming  of  the  Frenchmen. 

They  set  to  work  at  once  to  built  a  fort.  The  Indians  helped 
them  eagerly,  and  showed  themselves  very  friendly.  They  taught 
the  French  how  to  thatch  their  houses  with  leaves  after  the  Indian 
custom,  and  they  gave  them  a  generous  portion  of  their  corn. 

This  fort  the  Frenchmen  also  called  Fort  Caroline,  as  they  had 
named  the  former  one  at  Port  Royal.  And  like  the  former  colony 
they  began  to  get  into  trouble  among  themselves  as  soon  as  the  fort 
was  built.  There  were  nearly  always  some  reckless  spirits  in  every 
colony  who  did  not  wish  to  work,  and  consequently  made  trouble  for 
the  rest. 

Then  they  were  homesick,  and  desired  to  go  back  to  France  again. 
While  they  were  making  plans  to  leave  the  country,  they  saw  a  fleet 
putting  into  their  harbor,  and  to  their  great  delight  it  proved  to  be 
Captain  Ribault  with  seven  ships. 

Shortly  before  the  appearance  of  Ribault,  the  French  had  heard 
that  some  Spanish  ships  had  come  to  Florida,  and  landed  just  a  hun¬ 
dred  miles  below  where  they  were  building. 

This  report  was  true.  The  Spaniards  had  made  a  stronghold,  and 
planted  a  colony  at  a  place  they  called  St.  Augustine.  It  is  the 
present  site  of  the  old  town  of  that  name  in  Florida  and  this  town, 
thus  built  by  the  Spaniards  in  1564,  is  the  oldest  town  in  all  the 
United  States. 

Just  before  Ribault  came  up  the  mouth  of  the  St.  John’s 


56 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


River,  some  of  the  Spanish  vessels  lurking  about,  fired  upon  his 
ships,  but  did  him  no  injury.  This  showed  the  French  that  the 
Spaniards  meant  to  be  unfriendly,  and  served  to  put  them  on  their 
guard  against  them.  Ribault  went  up  to  Fort  Caroline  and  took  the 
command  which  belonged  to  him  by  superior  rank.  Laudonniere 
wanted  him  to  stay  and  make  the  fort  stronger  in  case  the  Spanish 
forces  came  to  attack  them.  But  Ribault  decided  to  take  his  ships 
and  go  to  St.  Augustine  to  besiege  the  Spaniards.  He  therefore 
gathered  all  his  fighting  men,  and  left  Laudonniere  with  the  Avomen 
and  children  and  a  few  men,  who  from  sickness  or  other  causes 
could  not  go  with  him. 

As  soon  as  Ribault  was  fairly  off,  a  party  of  Spaniards  attacked 
the  fort  and  soon  got  inside  the  Avails.  Then  they  murdered,  in 
cold  blood,  eArery  man,  woman,  and  child  they  could  seize  upon. 
Laudonniere  and  a  few  others  escaped  to  the  sea-shore,  and  taking  a 
small  vessel  Ribault  had  left  behind,  they  succeeded  in  getting  back 
to  France.  But  Arery  feAv  escaped  the  Spanish  swords. 

In  the  mean  time  Ribault  fared  Arery  badly.  Terrific  storms  came 
on,  and  as  these  Avere  all  strange  Avaters  and  coasts,  of  course  even 
experienced  sailors  did  not  know  Iioav  to  steer  safely.  So  it  hap¬ 
pened  that  all  Ribault’s  ships  Avere  wrecked,  and  he  and  Ins  men 
barely  escaped  with  their  lives. 

They  found  themselves  on  shore  in  the  wilderness,  one  hundred 
miles  from  the  Spanish  settlement  at  St.  Augustine  and  one  hun¬ 
dred  and  fifty  from  Fort  Caroline.  In  order  to  get  on  easier  they 
agreed  to  separate  into  tAVO  companies.  One  of  these  companies 
numbered  about  two  hundred  men,  the  other  tAVO  hundred  and  fifty. 

The  party  Avhich  Ribault  commanded  marched  northward  till 
they  came  to  the  banks  of  a  river,  where  they  beheld  a  great  force 
of  Spaniards  awaiting  them  on  the  opposite  side.  The  French 
stopped  to  parley  with  them.  After  some  talk  the  French,  Avho  must 
have  lost  many  of  their  arms  in  their  sliipAvreck  and  been  worn  out 
Avitli  their  severe  march,  agreed  to  ghre  themselves  up  to  the  enemy. 
They  had  not  heard  of  the  fate  of  their  comrades  in  the  fort,  and 
had  no  reason  to  suppose  they  should  receive  any  cruel  treatment  at 
the  hands  of  the  Spaniards,  who  Avere  not  at  war  Avith  France.  No 
sooner  had  they  surrendered  themselves  than  the  Spaniards  ordered 
them  to  be  placed  in  a  line,  and  then  the  Spanish  soldiery  set  upon 
them  with  their  swords  and  daggers,  and  stabbed  every  man  to  death. 
No,  not  quite  all.  They  first  asked  every  man  what  religion  he  was 


FRENCH  ATTEMPTS  AT  SETTLEMENT.  57 

of,  and  ten  or  twelve  said  they  were  Roman  Catholics.  These  they 
kept  alive.  The  rest  —  Ribault  among  them  —  were  thus  foully 
slaughtered.  One  man,  a  carpenter  by  trade,  fell  down  as  one  life¬ 
less,  and  after  the  Spaniards  had  left  them  for  dead,  he  crawled 
away,  managed  to  get  into  a  safe  place,  and  finally  returned  to 
France,  where  he  wrote  this  story  and  had  it  printed. 

After  the  Spaniards  had  done  this  foul  deed  they  hung  the  bodies 
of  these  murdered  men  on  trees  with  this  label  fastened  to  them, 
“  Not  as  Frenchmen,  hut  as  Lutherans ,”  which  meant  they  did  not 
kill  these  men  because  they  were  Frenchmen,  but  because  they  were 
of  the  belief  of  Martin  Luther,  who  was  a  Protestant  and  boldlv 
opposed  the  Roman  Catholic  Church. 

The  party  which  had  separated  from  Ribault,  were  a  little  more 
fortunate.  Shortly  after  the  murder  of  Ribault  and  his  men,  the 
Spaniards  heard  that  this  second  party  were  building  a  fort  not  far 
from  St.  Augustine.  On  this  they  sent  word  to  know  if  they 
would  surrender,  promising  them  they  should  not  be  harmed.  The 
French,  who  knew  nothing  of  the  fate  of  their  companions,  gave 
themselves  up.  It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  that  the  Spanish  leader 
kept  his  word,  and  this  party  of  French  were  unharmed.  Many 
of  the  French  had  previously  gone  to  ask  shelter  of  the  Indians, 
preferring  to  trust  the  tender  mercies  of  savages  rather  than  the 
Spaniards. 

When  the  few  surviving  Frenchmen  returned  to  France  with  an 
account  of  these  massacres,  the  French  people,  both  Huguenots  and 
Romanists,  were  filled  with  rage  against  the  Spaniards.  But  King 
Charles  paid  no  attention  to  the  wrongs  the  colony  had  endured. 
He  was  a  weak  boy  ruled  by  his  bad  mother,  Catherine  de  Medicis, 
a  violent  Romanist,  who  wanted  all  the  Huguenots  in  the  kingdom 
slaughtered.  Many  people  believed  that  the  French  court  knew 
the  designs  of  the  Spaniards,  and  had  encouraged  them,  that  France 
might  be  rid  of  the  Protestant  colony.  But  there  was  one  man  in 
France,  though  he  was  a  devout  Romanist,  who  was  too  much  of 
a  patriot  to  see  his  countrymen  slaughtered  without  indignation. 
This  man  was  Dominic  de  Gourgues,  a  noble  gentleman  of  Gascony 
in  France. 

He  sold  all  his  estates,  borrowed  of  his  friends,  and  got  all  the 
money  together  he  could  to  fit  out  ships  for  Florida.  Then  he 
picked  out  a  brave  company  of  soldiers,  and  went  on  his  way.  He 
did  not  tell  his  men  what  he  was  going  to  do  till  the  ships  reached 


68 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


the  West  Indies.  Then  he  told  them  he  was  going  to  lead  them  to 
avenge  their  lost  countrymen.  At  this  they  were  so  impatient  to 
go  on  that  he  could  hardly  restrain  them. 

Gourgues  went  to  the  River  May,  and  there  had  a  talk  with  the 
Indian  chiefs  with  whom  the  French  had  been  on  friendly  terms. 
He  found  a  number  of  his  countrymen  among  the  Indians  who  had 
fled  at  the  time  of  the  massacre.  These  men  had  learned  the  lan¬ 
guage  of  the  natives,  and  could  act  as  interpreters. 

All  the  Indians  hated  the  Spaniards,  and  were  ready  to  join  the 
French  to  do  battle  against  them.  In  a  few  days  Gourgues  at¬ 
tacked  the  Spanish  forts  with  the  help  of  the  Indians,  and  killed 
every  Spaniard  in  their  strongholds.  Those  who  were  not  killed  in 
battle  were  hung  on  the  scaffold.  In  return  for  the  label  they  had 
affixed  to  the  bodies  of  the  French,  he  affixed  to  each  of  the  Span¬ 
iards  as  they  hung  on  their  gibbets,  “  Not  as  Spaniards  and  sailors , 
but  as  traitors ,.  robbers ,  and  murderer  si'  In  all  cases  the  Indians 
fought  bravely,  and  were  the  firm  allies  of  the  French.  They  fed 
them  with  fish,  corn,  and  game,  and  remained  to  the  last  their  true 
friends.  There  were  three  forts  belonging  to  the  Spaniards  near 
the  St.  John’s  River,  and  after  all  these  had  been  sacked,  De  Gour¬ 
gues  returned  home.  The  fort  of  St.  Augustine  being  strongly 
fortified,  he  did  not  attack  it,  and  the  settlement  remained  there 
unharmed. 

After  his  return  the  king  looked  coldly  on  De  Gourgues,  and  the 
queen-mother  would  have  arrested  him,  had  she  dared,  but  the  peo¬ 
ple  welcomed  him  as  their  hero.  He  had  ruined  himself  by  the  ex¬ 
pedition,  and  died  a  few  years  later  in  great  poverty. 

You  will  recognize  the  fact,  that  his  conduct  was  not  in  accord¬ 
ance  with  a  high  spirit  of  humanity,  but  his  feeling  for  his  country¬ 
men  was  an  unselfish  and  noble  one.  It  is  sad  to  discover  that  the 
history  of  Christian  nations,  is  not  at  all  a  carrying  out  of  the  prin¬ 
ciple  of  returning  good  for  evil. 

After  this  Coligny  made  no  more  attempts  to  settle  a  French  col¬ 
ony.  In  fact,  he  himself  was  shortly  murdered  in  a  general  killing 
of  all  the  Huguenots  in  the  great  city  of  Paris  where  he  dwelt. 


ENGLISH  ATTEMPTS  AT  SETTLEMENT. 


59 


CHAPTER  IX. 

ENGLISH  ATTEMPTS  AT  SETTLEMENT. 

Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert’s  Voyage.  — His  Ship  struck  by  an  Iceberg.  — The  Shipwrecked  Crew. 

—  Walter  Raleigh’s  First  Colony. —  Homesick  Emigrants. —  The  Lost  Colonists. 

In  the  mean  time  the  English  were  growing  jealous  of  the  power 
the  Spaniards  had  assumed  over  this  country,  and  over  all  the  seas. 
The  massacre  of  the  French  colony  excited  much  anger  in  England. 
The  English  sovereign,  Queen  Elizabeth  (a  granddaughter  of  Henry 
VII.,  who  had  been  the  patron  of  American  discovery),  was  strongly 
opposed  to  the  Romanists.  She  sympathized  with  Dominic  de 
Gourgues,  and  sent  one  of  her  ambassadors  to  invite  him  to  England. 
Sir  Francis  Drake,  and  other  brave  English  captains,  went  out  to 
cruise  in  the  Atlantic,  to  overtake  and  capture  any  Spanish  vessel 
they  might  meet  on  the  high  seas,  and  thus  revenge  certain  wrongs 
which  they  said  this  proud  nation  had  inflicted  on  English  ships 
peacefully  sailing  southward. 

England  had  not  yet  attempted  to  plant  colonies  in  America. 
She  still  claimed  the  land  Sebastian  Cabot  explored, 
which  extended  from  Labrador  to  Florida  ;  and  every 
year  she  had  vessels  fishing  off  the  Banks  of  New¬ 
foundland.  But  until  the  year  1578  there  was  little 
attempt  at  colonizing. 

In  that  year  Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert  got  a  patent 
from  Queen  Elizabeth,  which  gave  him  the  right  to 
explore,  settle,  and  fortify  in  any  part  of  her  pos¬ 
sessions  in  North  America,  where  he  might  lead  his 
ships.  Sir  Humphrey  was  a  half-brother  of  Sir 
Walter  Raleigh,  who  was  one  of  the  favorite  noble¬ 
men  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  She  was  a  queen  who  liked  brave  and  ele¬ 
gant  gentlemen,  to  set  off  her  royal  pres¬ 
ence,  and  Sir  W alter  was  famous  for  being 
one  of  the  handsomest  and  best-dressed 
men  of  the  time,  and  better  than  that, 
he  was  a  brave  soldier,  a  clear-headed 
statesman,  a  fine  orator,  and  something 
of  a  poet.  At  the  time  De  Gourgues  re¬ 
turned  from  Florida,  Raleigh  was  in  Paris, 
in  high  favor  with  Colignyand  the  Hugue¬ 
nots  there,  and  probably  heard  much  about 
the  French  colonies.  In  1583,  when  Ra- 


Sir  Walter  Raleigh. 


60 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


leigh  was  in  London,  his  half-brother,  Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert,  much 
older  than  he,  was  making  preparations  for  a  voyage  to  America. 

There  were  five  ships  in  all.  Sir  Humphrey,  the  admiral,  went 
on  the  ship  Delight ,  the  Raleigh  followed,  commanded  by  the  vice- 
admiral  of  the  fleet,  then  came  the  Golden  Hind ,  with  rear-admiral 
Edward  Hayes.  There  were,  besides,  two  smaller  barks,  the  Squir¬ 
rel. ,  and  the  Swallow. 

They  sailed  for  Newfoundland,  and  there  found  thirty-six  ships 
of  other  nations  fishing  away  on  the  banks.  The  first  thing  Sir 
Humphrey  did  was  to  drive  all  these  thirty-six  other  ships  away. 
I  am  surprised  to  find  they  went  so  peaceably.  His  claim  to  New¬ 
foundland  seems  to  us  so  very  doubtful  that  one  would  have  ex¬ 
pected  all  the  other  ships  to  insist  that  they  had  as  good  right  to 
fish  on  Newfoundland  Banks  as  he.  But  they  gave  him  no  trouble, 
and  after  a  little  parley  sailed  away,  and  left  him  in  undisputed 
possession  of  all  the  fish.  Then  he  set  up  a  pillar  with  the  English 
arms  upon  it,  to  show  that  this  was  English  ground.  After  this  the 
little  fleet,  headed  by  the  Golden  Hind ,  began  to  sail  southward. 
There  were  only  four  ships  now,  for  the  Raleigh  had,  on  first  sail¬ 
ing  out,  got  separated  from  the  rest,  and  very  soon  returned  alone 
to  England.  But  Sir  Humphrey  and  the  others  went  to  Cape  Race, 
which  is  on  the  southern  extremity  of  the  island  of  Newfoundland, 
and  sailing  westerly  tried  to  get  in  to  land.  There  they  fell  among 
shoals,  and  had  terrible  storms  and  fogs  and  all  kinds  of  bad 
weather,  till  the  Swallow  went  down  to  the  bottom  of  the  sea.  Af¬ 
ter  that  Sir  Humphrey  thought  he  would  leave  his  own  ship,  the 
Delight ,  and  go  on  board  the  Squirrel ,  which  was  smaller,  and 
better  fitted  for  navigating  the  coast.  The  sailors  tried  to  dissuade 
him  on  account  of  the  danger,  but  he  would  not  give  in.  “  What," 
said  the  stout  old  sailor,  “  is  not  heaven  quite  as  near  by  sea  as 
land?” 

So  he  went  on  board  the  smaller  ship  and  got  in  close  to  shore. 
Suddenly  the  Golden  Hind ,  which  was  not  far  behind  the  Squirrel , 
felt  the  shock  of  a  sharp  concussion  in  the  water,  and  immediately 
they  saw  the  sea  close  over  the  lights  which  hung  in  her  rigging, 
and  that  was  the  last  they  ever  saw  or  heard  of  the  hapless  vessel. 
Whether  a  floating  iceberg,  drifting  down  from  unknown  seas  like 
a  glassen  ship,  had  with  one  blow  crushed  in  her  timbers  and  sunk 
her  under  the  black  waters,  or  whether  she  struck  some  unseen 
rock,  I  do  not  know.  But  down  she  went  with  all  these  brhve 


ENGLISH  ATTEMPTS  AT  SETTLEMENT. 


61 


souls  on  board  her,  and  the  grand  old  admiral  on  her  deck.  Noble 
Sir  Humphrey  !  I  fancy  heaven  was  quite  as  near  him  as  in  his 
own  dear  England.  But  does  it  not  make  the  eyes  fill  with  tears 
to  think  of  those  bold  fellows,  eager  to  build  towns  in  the  wilder¬ 
ness,  and  bring  civilization  to  this  unknown  land,  daring  the  terrors 
of  strange  waters,  suffering  from  cold  and  exposure,  and  all  to  go 
down  at  last  under  the  cruel  sea,  never  to  see  their  wives  and  chil¬ 
dren  any  more  ?  Our  own  poet,  Longfellow,  sings  their  sad  fate,  — 

“  Alas  !  The  land-wind  failed, 

And  ice-cold  grew  the  night, 

And  never  more  on  sea  or  land 
Would  Sir  Humphrey  see  the  light !  ” 

After  the  Squirrel  went  down  the  ship  Delight  took  her  turn 
at  disaster.  She  struck  a  rock  and  parted  amidships.  Fourteen 
of  her  crew  got  on  board  a  pinnace,  and  they  waited  to  take  the 
captain  off  too,  but,  like  many  another  brave  shipmaster,  he  would 
go  down  with  his  ship  rather  than  leave  her.  So  he  went  to  the 
bottom  with  the  timbers  of  his  beloved  craft.  The  fourteen  picked 
up  two  more  out  of  the  water,  and  then  they  were  so  crowded  that 
the  cry  was  raised  that  lots  must  be  drawn  to  cast  one  overboard. 
At  this  one  brave  fellow  (I  wish  we  knew  his  name)  spoke  up,  and 
said,  “  No ;  better  trust  to  Providence,  and  sink  or  swim  together 
than  cast  one  man  out.”  And  his  counsel  prevailed.  So  the  six¬ 
teen  souls  drifted  about  on  the  desolate  sea. 

Six  days  and  nights  they  drifted  thus,  suffering  horrible  tortures 
from  hunger  and  thirst,  eating  the  soles  of  their  shoes,  and  lapping  up 
with  parched  tongues  the  blessed  night-dew  when  it  fell.  In  this 
time  two  died,  and  were  cast  overboard.  On  the  seventh  day  the  pin¬ 
nace  floated  ashore  at  Newfoundland,  and  the  fourteen  survivors,  hag¬ 
gard,  starved,  and  meagre,  landed  there.  Afterwards  an  English 
ship  took  them  back  to  London.  This  was  the  end  of  the  first  voyage. 

After  that  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  bought  the  whole  of  Sir  Hum¬ 
phrey’s  patent,  and  began  to  fit  out  a  second  expedition.  Sir 
Walter  would  have  liked  to  command  this  in  person,  but  he  had 
his  hands  full  in  England.  He  was  one  of  the  favorite  courtiers  of 
Queen  Elizabeth,  and  you  know  what  an  exacting  mistress  she  was, 
—  so  vain,  so  eager  for  admiration,  and  so  jealous  lest  any  of  her 
lords  should  show  preference  for  any  one  except  herself,  that  she 
constantly  kept  poor  Sir  Walter  in  trouble.  Between  trying  to 
keep  in  her  good  grace  and  not  make  himself  too  much  a  slave  to 


62  STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 

her  whims,  he  seems  to  have  had  a  hard  time  of  it.  Then  he  had 
powerful  enemies,  because  his  rivals  saw  that  the  queen  really  favored 
him,  and  that  made  them  jealous  and  ready  to  plot  against  him. 
When  he  found  he  could  not  go  in  person  he  sent  two  of  his  friends, 
Arthur  Barlow  and  Philip  Amydos,  to  explore.  Coming  back  they 
gave  such  glowing  accounts  of  the  beauty  of  the  country  that  Raleigh 
laid  their  descriptions  before  Elizabeth,  and  the  land  was  named 
Virginia,  in  honor  of  that  princess,  who  was  known  as  the  “  Virgin 
Queen.” 

In  this  very  year,  1585,  on  a  beautiful  summer  day,  Sir  Richard 

Grenville  started  for  America  with  Sir 
Walter’s  first  colony.  They  landed  on  an 
island  called  Roanoke,  just  outside  Roan¬ 
oke  Inlet,  and  began  the  first  English  col¬ 
ony  in  America.  Soon  after  leaving  them 
Sir  Richard  returned  to  England  for  more 
supplies.  The  colonists  went  to  work  to 
settle  the  wilderness,  but  they  had  a  se¬ 
vere  time.  They  did  not  know  how  to  pro¬ 
vide  against  hardships,  and  like  almost  all  new  colonists  they  suf¬ 
fered  terribly.  They  did  not  get  houses  built  soon  enough,  and  had 
to  live  in  wretched  little  huts  all  the  first  winter.  And  winter 
always  seems  hard  on  new  colonies.  It  generally  happens  to  be 
the  coldest  known  for  years. 

Then  their  provisions  gave  out,  and  they  nearly  starved.  The 
Indians  became  hostile,  too,  to  add  to  the  distress,  and  they  were  in 
a  most  desperate  and  pitiable  condition  when  the  spring  of  1586 
dawned  upon  them.  They  dragged  out  a  miserable  existence  through 
the  spring  and  summer,  and  in  August  of  that  year  Sir  Francis  Drake 
came  there  with  his  fleet.  He  had  been  on  several  expeditions 
to  fight  the  Spaniards,  and  take  away  some  of  the  gold  this  latter 
nation  had  plundered  from  the  Indians  in  South  America.  He 
had  sailed  all  around  this  continent,  had  landed  at  California,  which 
was  then  an  unknown  country,  and  was  returning  home  loaded  with 
gold  and  booty  of  all  kinds  taken  from  Spanish  ships. 

His  own  ship  was  very  splendid  indeed.  He  had  it  fitted  up 
with  velvet  and  satin  hangings  in  his  cabin,  with  gold  and  silver 
dishes  to  eat  and  drink  from,  and  a  band  of  musicians  on  board. 
Imagine  how  he  looked  on  his  princely  ship  in  his  handsome  dress, 
as  he  came  sailing  up  to  the  half-starved  colonists  at  Roanoke.  I 


Drake’s  Ship. 


ENGLISH  ATTEMPTS  AT  SETTLEMENT. 


63 


warrant  they  cried  and  laughed  and  fell  on  each  other’s  necks  when 
they  saw  their  dear  old  English  flag  streaming  in  the  air  under 
these  strange  skies.  And  I  doubt  not  the  generous  admiral  feasted 
them  with  the  best  he  had  on  board  when  they  told  him  they 
were  free-born  Englishmen  who  had  been  starving  for  months. 
At  first  he  offered  to  leave  them  plenty  of  provisions  and  take 
home  news  of  them  to  England.  But  they  were  so  homesick,  they 
pleaded  only  to  go  back.  So  he  took  them  all  on  board  his  fleet, 
every  man  of  them,  and  the  colony  sailed  back  to  England. 

Sir  Walter  at  home,  harassed  by  his  enemies  and  in  not  very 
good  spirits,  had  sent  out  Sir  Richard  Grenville  with  more  ships, 
not  yet  knowing  Sir  Francis  Drake  had  taken  them  away.  When 
Sir  Richard  arrived  and  found  the  settlement  all  deserted,  he  landed 
fifty  men  and  provisions  for  two  years  as  a  beginning  of  another 
colony.  This  was  in  1586,  nearly  a  year  since  Sir  Francis  had  taken 
away  the  others,  and  yet  Sir  Richard  Grenville  had  not  heard  the 
news  of  their  departure  before  he  left  England.  You  see  they  had 
no  steamships  nor  Atlantic  cable  in  those  days. 

Well,  Sir  Richard  left  the  fifty  men,  among  whom  were  carpen¬ 
ters,  blacksmiths,  and  all  sorts  of  artisans,  and  they  went  to  work 
merrily,  cutting  down  trees,  planting  grain,  and  preparing  to  build 
a  fort  to  keep  secure  from  the  Indians.  They  seem  so  stanch 
and  brave  and  resolute,  such  a  little  party  breasting  the  terrors 
of  the  great  wilderness,  that  I  can  hardly  bear  to  tell  you  what 
happened  to  them.  Just  one  year  after,  Raleigh  sent  Mr.  John 
White  as  governor,  with  three  ships  and  supplies  to  the  colony. 
He  reached  Roanoke  inlet  and  landed  on  the  beach.  Instead  of  the 
expected  sound  of  the  axes  in  the  greenwood,  and  the  more  cheerful 
sound  of  voices  greeting  them  on  the  shore,  a  stillness  like  death 
reigned  there.  The  half-erected  fort  was  there,  but  no  human  be¬ 
ing  lurked  within  its  walls.  They  called,  and  shouted,  and  made 
the  forest  ring  with  blasts  of  trumpets,  but  there  was  no  voice  to 
answer  in  hearty  English  welcome.  Only  white  bones  lying  among 
the  ruins  of  the  attempted  town.  Every  man  of  the  settlement  had 
been  killed  by  the  Indians. 

I  admire  the  spirits  which  were  undaunted  by  the  disaster  which 
had  been  met  before.  I  can  hardly  believe  men  could  be  found 
nowadays  who  would  settle  in  a  place  where  they  knew  so  much 
discouragement  and  toil  and  peril  awaited  them.  Yet  there  were 
men  so  brave,  and  women,  too,  and  the  next  colony  was  immedi' 


64 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


ately  formed  from  those  on  board  Mr.  White’s  ships.  They  chose 
eleven  men,  for  a  governor  and  his  assistants,  and  the  third  colony 
was  begun.  Soon  after  landing,  Mistress  Ellinor  Dare,  who  was 
the  daughter  of  the  governor,  and  the  wife  of  Ananias  Dare,  gave 
birth  to  a  dear  little  babe,  who  was  the  first  Christian  child  ever 
born  on  this  continent.  They  named  her  Virginia,  after  the  land 
in  which  she  was  born,  —  delicate  little  English  blossom,  to  spring 
from  so  rude  and  inhospitable  a  soil ! 

After  safely  landing  his  party,  Mr.  John  White  prepared  to  go 
back  to  England  to  report  to  Sir  Walter.  First  he  took  counsel  of 
the  people  to  find  out  their  minds  about  staying,  and  all  chose  of 
their  own  accord  to  remain.  Then  he  sailed  away  as  swiftly  as  the 
wind  would  take  him,  and,  I  doubt  not,  many  an  eye  gazed  after 
him  as  if  they  bade  a  last  farewell  to  England  in  his  retreating  sails. 

After  his  return  Mr.  White  spent  two  years  trying  to  get  fitted, 
out  again.  It  was  up-hill  work,  for  the  American  possessions  were 
getting  less  and  less  popular,  but  at  length  with  three  ships  and 
more  men  and  provisions,  he  went  back. 

Again  they  met  the  same  experience  as  before.  No  gathering  on 
the  shore  to  greet  them,  no  voices  answering  to  their  shouts,  no 
signs  of  human  occupation.  They  landed  and  looked  anxiously 
about  them.  After  some  search  they  found  three  large  letters,  C. 
R.  O.  carved  in  the  bark  of  a  tree,  and  then,  looking  more  closely 
found,  cut  on  the  logs  of  the  fort,  the  word  CROATAN.  They  rec¬ 
ognized  this  as  the  name  of  an  island  outside  the  inlet.  They  also 
found  some  smouldering  embers  in  the  fort,  which  denoted  recent 
occupation,  and  some  of  the  sailors  unearthed  certain  chests  which 
contained  goods  belonging  to  Mr.  White.  These  he  was  glad  to 
see,  because  it  confirmed  his  impression  that  the  colonists  were  alive 
and  in  safety,  since  they  had  time  before  going  away  to  conceal 
this  treasure.  On  this,  he  took  to  his  ships  and  decided  to  go  di¬ 
rectly  to  Croatan. 

Now  comes  the  strangest  part  of  the  story.  Mr.  White’s  ships 
never  reached  Croatan  at  all.  After  they  got  out  to  sea  the  wind 
changed,  the  weather  was  unfavorable,  the  fleet  drifted  off  in  the 
direction  of  the  Azores,  and  never,  so  far  as  we  can  find  out,  from 
that  day  to  this,  did  any  one  ever  go  to  Croatan  to  look  for  the  lost 
colonists.  There  they  remain  —  the  one  hundred  and  fifty  men, 
women,  and  children,  Ananias  Dare  with  his  wife  Ellinor,  the  gov¬ 
ernor’s  daughter,  and  their  dear  little  baby, —  never  to  be  known 


TIIE  INDIANS. 


65 


among  men  any  more.  Did  they  live  there  in  Croatan  till  they  died 
of  hunger  and  hardships  ?  Did  the  Indians  murder  them  as  they 
did  their  predecessors  ?  Did  they  unite  with  the  Indians  and  be¬ 
come  one  with  the  tribe,  the  little  Virginia  growing  up  into  a  lovely 
maiden,  perhaps  to  become  the  fair-faced  princess  of  some  dusky 
warrior  ?  All  these  questions  have  been  asked  over  and  over,  but 
they  have  never  been  answered.  And  this  was  the  end  of  Sir 
Walter’s  last  colony.  There  are  records  among  his  papers  of  ships 
fitted  out  to  seek  these  lost  people,  but  nothing  is  known  of  any  such 
expedition.  There  is  little  doubt  that  he  did  make  some  effort  to 
send  after  them.  He  also  made  two  or  three  attempts  to  plant 
other  colonies  in  Guiana,  South  America,  and  lost  his  son  Walter 
in  a  skirmish  with  the  Spaniards  there. 

You  know  what  became  of  Sir  Walter  himself,  do  you  not?  The 
ending  of  his  life  was  as  sad  as  the  fate  of  the  colonists.  He  out¬ 
lived  the  dangerous  intrigues  of  his  enemies  all  through  the  reign 
of  Queen  Bess,  to  fall  a  victim  to  them  in  the  time  of  James  I.,  her 
successor,  and  this  princely  courtier,  this  noble  gentleman,  perished 
on  the  scaffold  in  1618,  in  the  sixty-sixth  year  of  his  age. 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE  INDIANS. 

First  Inhabitants  of  America.  —  Aztecs  in  Mexico.  —  The  Red  Men  of  the  United  States.  —  How 
they  looked. — Their  Houses.  —  The  Clothes  they  wore.  —  Canoes. — Food. — Household 
Implements.  — Indian  Women.  — The  Happy  Hunting-grounds. 

Before  I  proceed  to  tell  you  about  the  permanent  settlement  of 
the  white  man  in  this  country,  I  must  tell  you  something  about  the 
people  who  inhabited  America  at  the  time  it  was  discovered.  You 
know  that  Columbus  called  them  Indians ,  because  he  supposed  they 
were  dwellers  in  a  country  that  was  either  a  part  of  the  continent 
of  Asia  or  very  near  it.  But  the  Indians  had  names  by  which  they 
called  themselves,  and  when  the  white  people  began  to  settle  here, 
they  found  there  were  many  different  tribes  and  peoples,  and  that 
there  were  great  diversities  in  language,  manners,  and  customs, 
among  the  various  tribes. 

When  Hernando  Cortez  had  entered  Mexico  and  conquered  it,  he 
found  a  very  much  more  civilized  people  than  those  dwelling  in 

5 


66 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


other  parts  of  North  America.  They  had  a  fine  city,  with  walls, 
well-built  houses,  and  temples  ornamented  with  gold  and  silver,  in 
which  to  worship  their  gods.  The  kings  wore  robes  woven  of  cot¬ 
ton,  dyed  in  beautiful  colors,  and  sometimes  painted  with  birds  and 
flowers,  so  that  they  resembled  fine  European  fabrics.  They  also 
understood  the  art  of  smelting  metals,  and  making  paper,  and  many 
manufactures  of  which  the  more  northern  Indians  knew-nothinp;. 

These  people  were  called  Aztecs,  and  were  the  most  civilized  na¬ 
tives  on  this  continent. 

But  the  Indians  who  inhabited  the  country  which  is  now  the 
United  States,  were  a  race  of  savage  people,  without  any  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  arts  and  manufactures,  and  very  little  idea  of  the  man¬ 
ner  of  tilling  the  soil. 

The  skins  of  these  native  Americans  were  copper-colored,  or  red¬ 
dish  brown,  from  which  they  have  been  called  “  red-skins,”  or  “  red 
men.”  They  had  black  hair,  which  even  in  the  women  never 
curled  or  fell  in  waving  masses,  but  was  always  perfectly  straight 
and  very  coarse.  The  men  did  not  have  beards,  and  never  shaved. 
If  any  hair  attempted  to  grow  on  their  faces  they  plucked  it  out  by 
the  roots,  so  that  it  did  not  come  again.  They  had  rather  small, 
half-shut  eyes,  high  cheek-bones,  and  low,  broad  foreheads.  We 
should  not  think  them  a  very  handsome  people,  I  fancy,  although 
some  of  the  Indian  women,  and  men,  too,  are  said  to  have  been 
quite  dignified  and  good-looking. 

When  De  Soto  went  through  Florida  on  his  way  to  the  Missis¬ 
sippi  River,  he  passed  through  a  great  many  Indian  kingdoms. 
None  of  these  were  very  large,  and  each  tribe  spoke  a  language  a 
little  different  from  its  neighboring  tribe.  Each  kingdom  had  its 
town,  into  which  they  could  retire  in  case  of  war.  These  towns 
were  walled  about,  as  I  have  described  to  you  in  the  account  of  De 
Soto’s  march  to  the  Mississippi.  All  about  these  towns  lay  the 
fields  where  they  planted  their  corn  and  beans. 

The  Indian  corn,  or  maize,  potatoes,  and  tobacco,  were  all  new 
vegetable  productions  to  the  white  men,  and  were  soon  introduced 
into  Europe  as  great  luxuries.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Indians  had 
no  domestic  animals  at  all.  They  had  plenty  of  wild  deer,  which 
they  used  for  food,  and  dressed  their  skins  for  clothing  ;  the 
woods  and  rivers  abounded  in  wild  ducks,  turkeys,  geese,  swans, 
and  all  kinds  of  game.  But  they  had  no  farm  animals,  no  oxen, 
cows,  horses,  pigs,  or  even  dogs  and  cats.  All  these  were  brought 


THE  INDIANS. 


67 


here  by  the  Europeans.  De  Soto  brought  the  first  horses  and  pigs, 
and  when  the  English  began  to  settle  here,  they  brought  oxen, 
sheep,  cows,  and  all  the  animals  which  are  seen  in  an  English  barn¬ 
yard. 

The  Indians  who  lived  in  Virginia  and  the  eastern  States  were 
even  less  civilized  than  those  De  Soto  encountered.  Their  houses, 
or  “  wigwams,”  were  often  made  of  several 
poles,  put  into  the  ground  in  a  circle,  and  tied 
together  at  the  top  in  the  shape  of  a  round 
tent.  These  poles  were  covered  with  mats 
woven  of  grass,  and  the  inner  bark  of  trees, 
which  was  tough  and  fibrous.  Sometimes  the 
wigwams  were  square,  with  poles  thrust  in  wigwam, 

the  ground  in  each  corner,  forming  a  room  eighteen  or  twenty  feet 
square,  with  walls  of  matting  and  a  roof  of  the  same.  In  the  cen¬ 
tre  of  the  roof  was  a  hole  through  which  the  smoke  might  pass 
when  they  built  a  fire  inside  this  tent.  Often  the  walls  inside  were 
lined  with  the  fur  of  the  deer,  and  piles  of  these  deer-skins  made 
very  comfortable  beds. 

In  the  summer  the  Indians  wore  very  little  clothing,  but  in  the 
winter  the  northern  Indians  dressed  warmly  in  mantles  of  fur,  some¬ 
times  very  handsomely  trimmed  with  feathers.  They  wore  leggings  of 
skins,  and  their  moccasins  or  shoes  were  made  of  the  same  material. 
When  they  were  in  full  dress  the  men  wore  high  crests  of  bright 
feathers  on  their  heads,  and  decorated  their  faces  with  paints  of 
many  colors.  They  seemed  to  think  this  paint  added  very  much  to 
their  beauty,  and  if  any  of  the  young  Indian  girls  could  get  a  lit¬ 
tle  blue  and  yellow  and  red  paint  to  daub  over  her  cheeks  and  fore¬ 
head  in  long  streaks,  she  was  very  proud  of  her  personal  appear¬ 
ance. 

They  also  had  strings  of  shells  of  different  colors,  which  they  used 
for  ornaments.  These  were  woven  into  belts,  and  sometimes  embroi¬ 
dered  upon  the  edges  of  their  fur  mantles,  or  up  and  down  their 
leggings,  and  made  little  tinklings  when  they  walked.  These  shells, 
which  they  called  wampum ,  they  used  for  money,  and  had  dif¬ 
ferent  values  for  them,  as  they  were  more  or  less  rare.  After  the 
white  men  began  to  trade  with  the  Indians  they  brought  over 
many-colored  beads  which  the  Indians  also  called  wampum ,  and 
used  for  decoration  in  the  same  way  that  they  had  used  the  shells. 
Often  they  would  give  bushels  of  corn,  or  an  armful  of  ricli  furs, 
for  a  single  handful  of  bright-colored  beads. 

o  o 


68 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


The  deer  was  a  very  valuable  animal  to  the  Indians.  After  they 
had  stripped  him  of  his  skin  to  make  their  clothes,  or  their  beds, 


American  Deer. 


or  the  lining  to  their  wigwams,  they  had  his  carcass  for  food.  And 
they  used  his  sinews  for  thread  to  sew  their  clothing,  or  their  ca¬ 
noes  of  birch  bark. 

These  canoes  or  boats  were  sometimes  made  of  logs,  hollowed 
out  something  as  you  have  seen  a  pig’s  trough,  but  oftener  they 
were  made  of  the  bark  of  the  birch-tree,  stripped  off  in  one  long 
piece  and  carefully  fitted  over  a  light  frame  of  cedar  wood.  In 
these  frail  little  boats,  which  danced  on  the  water  like  a  plaything, 
the  Indians,  sometimes  eight  or  ten  in  one  canoe,  would  make  long 
journeys  in  rivers  abounding  in  falls  and  rapids,  and  would  come 
safely  back  in  them.  When  they  were  on  shore,  the  boats  were  so 
light  they  could  take  them  on  their  shoulders  and  carry  them  from 
one  river  to  another. 

There  was  no  need  of  their  suffering  for  want  of  food.  Besides 
the  deer  which  were  so  abundant,  and  the  corn  and  beans  which 
they  raised  every  season,  there  were  quantities  of  wild  fowl  and 
game  which  they  could  shoot  with  their  bows  and  arrows.  Then 


THE  INDIANS. 


69 


the  ocean,  rivers,  and  inland  lakes  swarmed  with  fish.  All  the 
Indians  who  lived  near  the  sea,  or  any  body  of  water,  were  very 
skillful  in  taking  fish,  and  it  was  a  principal  feature  in  their  diet. 
Indeed,  many  of  the  Indian  dishes  would  seem  very  delightful  to  a 
hungry  man,  and  quite  make  his  mouth  water  to  think  of. 

At  one  time,  after  a  colony  of  Englishmen  had  been  settled  in 
Virginia  and  was  getting  on  prosperously,  a  party  of  colonists  com¬ 
ing  over  from  England  to  join  them  were  shipwrecked,  and  cast 
ashore  some  miles  below  the  English  settlement  on  a  rocky  island. 
One  of  the  gentlemen,  named  Colonel  Norwood,  who  was  a  kinsman 
of  the  governor  of  the  colony,  tells  the  story  of  their  sufferings. 
For  some  time  they  lived  on  oysters  which  they  found  on  the  rocks, 
but  at  last  even  the  supply  of  oysters  gave  out,  and  they  were  act¬ 
ually  forced  to  become  cannibals,  and  eat  the  bodies  of  their  dead 
companions.  In  this  great  distress  some  Indians  found  them,  car¬ 
ried  them  off  the  island  in  their  canoes,  took  them  to  their  wig¬ 
wams,  and  fed  and  succored  them  in  the  tenderest  manner. 

Colonel  Norwood  describes  the  houses  and  fare  of  the  Indians 
very  minutely,  and  cannot  praise  too  much  their  kindness,  who  thus 
saved  the  lives  of  all  the  party.  This  is  his  description  of  the  king’s 
wigwam  :  — 

“  Locust  posts  sunk  in  the  ground  at  corners  and  partitions  was 
the  strength  of  the  whole  fabric.  The  roof  was  tied  fast  to  the 
posts  with  a  sort  of  strong  rushes  which  grew  there,  which  supplied 
the  place  of  nails  and  pins. 

“  This  house  or  wigwam  was  about  twenty  feet  square,  and  on 
both  sides  were  platforms  about  six  feet  long,  covered  with  skins 
which  were  used  for  beds.  In  the  middle  of  the  roof  was  the  hole 
for  the  smoke,  which  naturally  did  not  all  rise  out  at  this  opening 
without  the  aid  of  a  chimney,  but  was  plentifully  distributed  in  all 
parts  of  the  wigwam.” 

The  first  dish  which  the  starving  party  were  served  with  was 
what  the  natives  called  “  hominy,”  or  Indian  corn  boiled  and  beaten 
to  a  mash.  This  they  handed  round  in  a  wooden  bowl,  a  large 
clean  muscle  shell  serving  for  a  spoon.  Then  they  fed  them  with 
steaks  cut  from  the  liind-quarters  of  a  deer,  and  roasted  before 
the  coals  on  a  sharp  stick.  Another  time  they  had  a  wild  turkey 
boiled  with  oysters,  and  served  up  in  the  same  pot  in  which  it 
was  boiled.  “  This,”  says  Colonel  Norwood,  “  was  a  very  savory 
mess,  and  I  believe  would  have  passed  for  a  delicacy  at  any  great 


70 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


table  in  England,  by  palates  more  competent  to  make  a  judgment 
than  mine,  which  was  now  more  gratified  with  the  quantity  than 
the  quality  of  what  was  before  me.” 

All  the  cooking  utensils  of  the  savages  were  either  of  stone  or  a 

kind  of  rude  earthenware  made  of  baked  clay. 
Indeed,  all  their  implements  were  of  the 
rudest  kind.  You  can  imagine  they  were  so, 
when  you  remember  they  had  no  iron  what¬ 
ever.  Even  the  Aztecs,  who  were  partly  civil¬ 
ized,  had  no  iron,  although  they  knew  how  to 
weapons.  melt  copper,  silver,  and  gold.  But  the  north¬ 

ern  Indians  understood  the  use  of  none  of  the  metals.  Their  most 
dangerous  weapons,  and  all  their  instruments  for  hunting  and  fish¬ 
ing,  were  of  stone  rudely  hammered  and  sharpened.  The  heads  of 
their  arrows  were  of  stone,  and  their  tomahawks  (a  kind  of  war-club 
which  they  could  fling  so  dexterously  as  to  split  the  skull  of 
an  enemy),  were  also  of  sharpened  stone. 

After  the  English  came  they  soon  learned  to  use  muskets  and 
fire-arms  of  different  kinds.  But  at  first  they  were  very  much 
afraid  of  them.  Often  after  they  had  seen  these  weapons  they 
would  fancy,  when  they  were  taken  ill,  that  some  unseen  bullet  had 
wounded  them,  and  they  would  send  to  beg  a  white  man  to  come 
and  cure  them.  They  could  not  understand,  either,  what  gunpow¬ 
der  was,  and  the  first  quantity  which  they  obtained  they  planted  in 
the  ground,  expecting  it  to  come  up  in  the  spring,  as  the  corn  and 
beans  did,  and  they  could  raise  a  large  crop  of  it. 

The  men  among  the  Indians  occupied  themselves  most  of  the 
time  in  hunting  and  fishing  and  going  to  war.  In  war  they  were 
brave  and  fearless,  although  their  manner  of  warfare  seemed  very 
mean  and  cowardly  to  the  whites.  They  rarely  came  out  in  fair 
and  open  battle,  as  the  Europeans  did.  They  hid  from  their  ene¬ 
mies  to  leap  upon  them  and  surprise  them  ;  they  lurked  behind 
trees,  from  which  shelter  they  shot  their  weapons  ;  and  considered  it 
fair  to  practice  any  kind  of  stratagem  upon  their  foes.  When  they 
killed  or  murdered  an  enemy  on  the  battle-ground,  they  cut  the  skin 
all  around  the  top  of  his  head  and  tore  away  the  hair,  and  this  they 
called  the  scalp.  The  bravest  Indian  chief  had  many  scalp  locks  of 
his  dead  foes  hanging  at  his  wampum  girdle  when  he  went  to  dance 
his  fierce  war-dance,  and  on  the  handle  of  his  tomahawk  was  cut 
notches  for  each  scalp  he  had  taken  in  battle.  When  they  were 


THE  INDIANS 


71 


captured  and  put  to  death  they  rarely  uttered  a  cry  or  groan,  but 
bore  terrible  pain  very  heroically.  Indeed,  they  seemed  to  be  less 
sensitive  to  pain  than  the  white  man.  Yet  though  very  agile  and 
brave  and  indifferent  to  pain,  it  proved  in  the  end  that  the  white 
man  could  endure  hardships  longer  than  the  Indian,  and  that  he 
died  under  sufferings  and  burdens  which  the  white  man  could  sus¬ 
tain  and  live  through. 

The  Indian  women  were  treated  much  like  slaves  by  the  men. 


Medicine  Dance. 


They  did  all  the  labor,  such  as  planting  the  corn  and  the  other  work 
in  the  fields.  They  put  up  the  tents,  wove  the  mats  for  the  walls, 
pounded  the  corn  for  the  flour  or  hominy,  and  did  all  the  work  ex¬ 
cept  hunting  and  fishing.  The  men  seemed  to  care  very  little  for 
their  women,  and  there  was  less  love  between  Indian  husbands  and 
wives  than  among  almost  any  other  people  ever  known.  They 
were  an  idle,  wandering  race,  taking  their  huts  from  one  place  after 
the  hunting  grounds  were  exhausted,  and  the  deer  all  killed  from 
that  spot,  and  pitching  them  somewhere  else.  Then  the  women 
trudged  along  carrying  the  heavy  burdens  of  lodge-poles  and  house¬ 
hold  wares  and  rolls  of  furs,  their  babies  strapped  on  their  backs, 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


72 

while  the  men  walked  off  straight  and  unencumbered,  bearing  only 
their  bows  and  arrows.  And  when  they  decided  upon  a  place  to 
fix  the  camping  ground,  they  lay  at  ease  under  the  trees,  smoking 
their  long  pipes  and  talking  of  battles,  while  their  wives  put  up 
the  wigwams  and  got  the  camp  in  order. 

They  had  dances  to  celebrate  important  events,  as  “  war  dances  ” 
and  “  harvest  dances,”  after  a  battle  or  harvest.  When  one  of  the 
tribe  was  ill,  they  danced  the  medicine  dance  about  the  couch,  hop¬ 
ing  by  their  wild  cries  to  drive  away  the  bad  spirits  which  caused 
disease.  But  the  women  did  not  take  part  in  these  dances.  When 
the  men  danced  their  war  dances  with  hideous  yells,  round  poles 
decorated  with  human  scalps,  with  their  faces  painted  in  all  the  col¬ 
ors  of  a  rainbow,  the  squaws  looked  reverently  on  from  beside  the 
camp  fires. 

They  had  some  rude  ideas  of  religion,  for  they  believed  in  a 
“  Great  Spirit,”  and  in  happy  hunting-grounds,  where  the  soul  of 
the  warrior  went  after  death ;  and  when  they  buried  his  body  they 
put  in  the  grave  bows  and  arrows,  and  food  for  him  to  eat  on  his 
journey.  Often  they  tried  to  make  friends  with  this  Great  Un¬ 
known  Spirit,  by  offers  of  tobacco,  or  other  products  of  the  earth, 
which  they  burned  on  a  rude  altar  built  to  his  worship.  Their  re¬ 
ligion,  however,  taught  them  nothing  of  the  Golden  Rule,  “  Do 
unto  others  as  ye  would  that  they  should  do  to  you,”  nor  of  the 
Christian  doctrine  of  forgiveness  to  enemies.  They  were  conse¬ 
quently  terrible  and  relentless  in  war,  and  most  of  the  tribes  in 
North  America  were  exceedingly  cruel  in  their  treatment  of  cap¬ 
tives,  whether  men,  women,  or  children.  Sometimes  they  took  a 
fancy  to  spare  the  life  of  a  young  child  among  their  white  captives, 
and  rear  it  as  one  of  the  tribe  ;  and  there  are  a  few  instances  in 
which  a  white  man  or  woman  has  been  found,  by  their  kinsfolk, 
after  having  lived  so  long  among  the  Indians  that  they  had  lost  all 
memory  of  their  childhood,  and  were  complete  savages  in  language, 
customs,  and  everything  except  features. 

In  order  that  they  might  be  better  prepared  to  bear  pain,  if  in  the 
chance  of  war  it  should  be  their  fortune  to  be  made  prisoners  and 
put  to  the  torture,  the  Indians  were  trained  from  childhood  to  be 
very  enduring  and  hardy.  As  soon  as  an  Indian  babe  was  born,  it 
was  strapped  to  a  flat  board,  on  which  it  was  carried  on  its  mother’s 
back,  or  sometimes  hung  on  a  tree,  or  laid  on  the  ground.  To  this 
board  it  was  fastened  night  and  day.  Fancy  how  decidedly  a  white 


THE  INDIANS. 


baby  would  protest  against  this  treatment.  Yet  these  copper- 
skinned  infants  rarely  uttered  a  cry,  but  looked  contentedly  about 
them  with  their  bead-like  black  eyes,  and  bore  all  discomfort  with 
serene  temper.  When  it  became  time  for  the  youth  to  join  the 
company  of  the  older  men,  he  was  forced  to  go  through  the  severest 
ordeals  of  trial  and  pain  to  test  his  fortitude,  before  he  was  consid¬ 
ered  hardy  enough  to  become  a  warrior. 

This  is  a  brief  description  of  the  first  inhabitants  of  America 
of  whom  we  know  anything.  They  were  not  without  their  virtues. 
Often  very  generous  and  hospitable  to  the  white  man  who  landed  on 
their  shores,  they  gave  freely  of  their  corn  and  such  poor  food  and 
shelter  as  they  had.  When  Ribault  landed  in  Florida,  you  recollect 
the  natives  were  very  kind  to  him.  Indeed,  the  Frenchmen  always 
understood  better  how  to  treat  the  natives,  so  as  to  gain  their  hearts, 
than  any  other  of  the  Europeans,  and  the  Indians  kept  faith  with 
them  better  than  with  any  other  nation. 

When,  too,  the  English  landed  in  Virginia  and  New  England,  the 
natives  were  not  wanting  in  kindness  and  proffers  of  help.  After 
a  time  they  found  that  these  “pale-faces” 
had  come  to  remain  and  take  possession  of 
their  lands ;  that  they  were  crowding  them 
off  from  their  hunting-grounds  and  fishing 
places,  and  building  cities  in  the  sites  where  Indian  Pipes, 

their  wigwams  used  to  stand.  It  was  not  strange  that  they  began 
to  grow  jealous  of  this  people,  whose  number  seemed  to  them  like 
the  stars  in  the  sky,  or  the  sands  of  the  sea,  and  they  resented  their 
encroachments  with  all  their  savage  might  and  means  of  warfare. 

Now  all  that  the  wisest  among  them  could  have  feared  has 
happened  to  those  poor  natives  of  the  soil.  The  white  man  has 
crowded  them  back  farther  and  farther,  till  the  last  Indian  is  driven 
beyond  the  Mississippi.  Their  tribes  are  scattered  and  few  in  num¬ 
bers.  They  have  neither  been  able  to  keep  their  savage  estate,  nor 
adopt  the  manners  of  the  white  men.  It  will  not  be  long  before 
the  last  of  them  will  have  died  out  in  the  great  country  that  they 
once  possessed  and  called  their  own. 


74 


STORY  OR  OUR  COUNTRY 


CHAPTER  XI. 


FIRST  PERMANENT  ENGLISH  SETTLEMENT. 


King  James  grants  Lands  in  Virginia.  —  The  Sealed  Orders  for  the  Colony.  — Captain  John 
Smith.  —  His  School-days.  —  Turns  Hermit.  —  Tournament  with  the  Turks.  —  His  Slavery 
in  Tartary.  —  His  Character  as  Leader  in  a  Colony. 


-J 


§ 


John  Smith. 


place  on  the  throne  of  England. 


Building  Jamestown. 

There  were  no  very  vigorous 
attempts,  on  the  part  of  the  Eng¬ 
lish,  to  settle  in  America,  for 
many  years  after  the  sad  failure 
of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh's  colonies. 
About  the  year  1606  and  1607, 
however,  a  new  interest  was 
aroused,  and  colonizing  in  America 
was  again  talked  about.  Queen 
Elizabeth  was  now  dead,  and  her 
cousin,  James  I.,  had  taken  her 
From  King  James  some  enterpris- 


FIRST  PERMANENT  ENGLISH  SETTLEMENT.  75 

ing  gentlemen  in  London  had  obtained  a  grant  of  land  in  America, 
and  the  right  to  plant  colonies  there. 

All  the  country,  north  of  Cape  Fear,  on  the  coast  of  North  Caro¬ 
lina,  had  been  called  Virginia  ever  since  Raleigh’s  first  expedition. 
The  gentlemen  who  held  this  grant  from  the  king  divided  then- 
possessions  into  two  parts.  One  part  they  called  South  Virginia,  the 
other,  North  Virginia.  The  former  included  all  that  tract  lying  be¬ 
tween  Cape  Fear  and  the  Potomac  River ;  the  latter  portion  lay 
between  the  Hudson  River  and  Newfoundland.  The  strip  between 
the  two  —  comprising  the  States  of  Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey,  and 
Delaware  —  they  agreed  to  leave  for  the  present  as  neutral  ground, 
where  any  one  might  settle,  if  he  were  a  good  and  loyal  subject  of 
England.  After  thus  dividing  the  land,  the  men  who  owned  the 
grant,  or  patent,  separated  into  two  companies.  Those  who  took 
South  Virginia  were  the  “  London  Company  ;  ”  those  who  took 
North  Virginia,  the  “  Plymouth  Company.” 

Now  settlement  began  in  earnest.  In  April  1007,  the  first  per¬ 
manent  colony  of  ^Englishmen  was  planted  on  this  American  soil. 
They  were  sent  by  the  London  Company  to  the  same  island  of  Roan¬ 
oke  where  Raleigh’s  ill-fated  colonies  had  perished  twenty  years 
before.  Fortunately  they  were  driven  by  storms  into  Chesapeake 
Bay,  and  instead  of  building  on  the  island  they  fixed  their  abode 
on  the  main-land,  at  the  mouth  of  the  James  River  in  Virginia. 
This  river  they  immediately  named  the  James,  in  honor  of  their 
king,  and  they  called  the  infant  town  which  they  then  began  to 
build  in  the  wilderness,  Jamestown. 

The  principal  men  who  were  engaged  in  this  settlement  were 
Edward  Wingfield,  Bartholomew  Gosnold,  Christopher  Newport, 
John  Ratcliffe,  George  Kendall,  John  Marten,  and  John  Smith. 
Both  Newport  and  Gosnold  had  made  previous  voyages  to  Virginia, 
and  had  explored  the  sea-coast  in  that  vicinity. 

Before  setting  out  for  America,  the  London  Company  had  given 
Captain  Newport,  who  commanded  the  expedition,  a  sealed  packet, 
containing  the  names  of  those  who  were  to  form  the  council  which 
was  to  rule  and  make  laws  for  the  colony.  They  were  forbidden 
to  break  this  seal  until  they  reached  Virginia.  I  confess  I  see 
very  little  sense  in  such  an  arrangement,  for  no  one  knew  who 
had  any  authority,  and  they  had  hardly  set  out  on  their  voyage 
before  they  began  to  quarrel  about  who  had  the  best  right  to  com¬ 
mand.  One  of  their  number,  Captain  John  Smith,  was  a  mark 


76 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


for  the  jealousy  of  all  those  who  wished  to  keep  the  reins  in  their 
own  hands.  No  one  among  the  leaders  of  the  new  colony  was  so 
fitted  to  rule  such  an  expedition.  He  was  already  very  popular 
with  the  most  part  of  the  common  people  on  the  ship,  and  Wing¬ 
field,  Ratcliffe,  and  one  or  two  others,  began  to  hate  him  bitterly. 
On  some  pretext  or  other,  therefore,  they  caused  Smith  to  be  im¬ 
prisoned  during  the  greater  part  of  the  voyage,  and  he  was  closely 
guarded  till  they  got  to  Virginia. 

Then,  opening  their  sealed  orders,  they  found  that  Wingfield, 
Newport,  Gosnold,  Marten,  Ratcliffe,  Kendall,  and  Smith  were 
appointed  members  of  a  council  of  which  Wingfield  was  to  be  the 
president. 

Of  all  the  men  who  came  to  America  in  these  early  days,  no  one 
man  did  more  for  the  permanent  establishment  of  English  colonies 
than  Captain  John  Smith.  He  was  very  brave  and  persevering, 
and  he  knew  just  how  to  do  the  right  thing  at  the  right  moment , 
and  besides  these  qualities,  he  had  led  a  life  which  was  the  proper 
apprenticeship  for  a  man  who  would  build  up  a  colony.  His  auto¬ 
biography  is  more  like  a  story  out  of  a  novel  than  any  real  life 
history,  and  to  give  you  some  idea  of  what  kind  of  a  man  he  was 
I  must  tell  you  briefly  his  story  from  boyhood,  as  he  tells  it  himself. 

He  was  born  in  Lincolnshire,  England,  of  well-to-do  parents,  and 
was  sent  early  to  school.  But  even  then  he  was  so  full  of  adven¬ 
ture,  that  when  only  thirteen  years  old  he  sold  his  satchel  and  books, 
in  order  to  raise  money  for  a  journey  to  a  neighboring  sea-port,  that 
he  might  go  to  sea.  Before  this  bargain  was  completed  his  father 
died,  and  that  damped  his  sea  ardor  for  a  time.  The  guardians 
who  were  left  in  charge  of  the  boy  and  his  small  inheritance,  re¬ 
garded  the  property  much  more  than  they  cared  for  him,  and  most 
likely  were  not  sorry  when  he  finally  ran  away.  For  as  soon  as  they 
tried  to  apprentice  him  to  a  merchant,  he  did  run  away  to  France, 
in  company  with  the  sons  of  an  earl  who  lived  in  the  county  where 
John  Smith  was  born  and  brought  up.  In  France,  he  and  the 
young  noblemen  had  many  adventures,  and  he  was  at  length  fur¬ 
nished  by  them  with  money  to  return  to  England.  But  money  was 
merely  an  incumbrance,  and  he  got  rid  of  it  as  quick  as  he  could. 
Then  he  rendered  some  service  to  a  Scotch  gentleman  in  Paris,  who 
gave  him  in  return  some  letters  to  noblemen  in  the  court  of  King 
James,  asking  them  to  introduce  him  at  court. 

Back  to  England  started  Smith ;  but  before  he  was  off  the  shores  of 


FIRST  PERMANENT  ENGLISH  SETTLEMENT. 


77 


France,  he  concluded  to  enlist  as  a  soldier,  and  fight  with  the  Dutch 
against  the  Spaniards.  Two  years  he  was  a  soldier  in  the  low  coun¬ 
tries,  —  as  Holland  was  then  called, —  and  then  he  really  went  back 
to  Scotland  with  the  letters  of  introduction,  which  ought  by  this 
time  to  have  grown  somewhat  musty. 

But  though  the  noble  Scots  to  whom  he  had  been  recommended 
offered  to  present  him  at  court,  he  declared  he  had  neither  means 
nor  inclination  to  become  a  courtier,  and  instead  resolved  he  would 
go  and  turn  hermit.  On  this  he  went  into  a  wood,  and,  as  he  says, 
“  built  a  faire  pavillion  of  boughs,”  where  he  slept  at  night.  By 
day  he  exercised  with  a  good  horse  and  threw  the  lance  like  a 
knight  in  a  tournament.  In  his  leisure  he  read  the  two  books  which 
made  up  his  library.  These  were  “  Life  of  Marcus  Aurelius  ”  and 
“  Macliiavelli’s  Art  of  War.”  But  this  singular  hermit  and  his 
wonderful  horseback  exercises  soon  drew  so  many  people  to  see  him, 
that  he  got  tired  of  the  play,  and  went  back  to  France  to  see  if  he 
could  get  another  chance  to  turn  soldier. 

After  many  wonderful  adventures  he  came  into  Transylvania,  now 
a  province  of  Austria.  Transylvania  was  then  at  war  with  the 
Turks,  and  John  Smith  joined  their  army  and  made  himself  noted 
for  his  sagacity  and  brilliant  exploits.  He  invented  a  kind  of  bomb¬ 
shell  to  throw  into  the  enemy’s  camp,  which  in  those  days  was  con¬ 
sidered  a  wonderful  engine  of  war. 

At  one  time  the  Turks  withdrew  into  a  fortress  on  the  Carpa¬ 
thian  Mountains.  The  Christians,  preparing  for  a  siege,  encamped 
on  the  plain  under  the  fortress  walls.  While  the  two  armies  waited 
a  breathing  space  before  commencing  the  siege,  the  Turkish 
governor  thought  he  would  have  some  sport  to  please  the  many 
fair  ladies  who  had  taken  shelter  in  the  castle  walls.  So  he  sent  a 
polite  message  to  the  Transylvanian  captain,  saying  that  one  of  his 
bravest  knights  would  be  most  happy  to  meet  one  of  the  Christian 
warriors  in  single  combat,  down  upon  the  plain  where  both  armies 
could  be  spectators  of  the  affray.  The  challenge  was  accepted,  and 
Captain  John  Smith  was  chosen  as  the  champion  who  should  meet 
the  Turkish  warrior. 

The  day  arrived,  and  the  Christians  in  their  brightest  and  newest 
armor  spread  themselves  over  the  green  plain  to  form  a  ring  for  the 
two  valiant  champions.  On  the  walls  of  the  castle  just  over  the 
plain  the  Turks  had  assembled  as  spectators,  and  many  ladies  flut¬ 
tered  their  brilliant  scarfs,  and  waved  their  white  hands  when  their 


78 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


warrior  went  out  at  the  fortress  gates.  The  heralds  shouted,  the 
dru  ms  beat,  and  out  came  the  Turk  in  great  pomp.  By  his  side 
marched  two  black  attendants,  one  bearing  a  lance  and  the  other 
leading  a  horse  in  glittering  trappings  and  saddle-cloth  stiff  with 
gold.  The  Turk  himself  was  most  gorgeously  arrayed,  and  his 
splendid  dress  was  completed  by  a  pair  of  wings  fastened  on  his 
shoulders,  made  of  woven  eagles’  feathers  studded  with  gold  and 
jewels.  I  fancy  this  last  must  have  been  an  awkward  ornament  to 
fight  in. 

As  for  John  Smith,  he  came  out  in  plain  soldier’s  clothes,  with 
a  boy  bearing  his  lance,  and  rode  up  to  the  lists.  Then  with  a 
few  polite  bows  and  exchange  of  courtesies  the  fight  began.  It  was 
not  a  very  long  tussle.  In  a  few  minutes  the  Christians  set  up 
a  shout,  and  the  Turks  uttered  a  cry,  for  their  brave  warrior’s  head 
lay  rolling  in  the  dust,  while  John  Smith  stood  quite  cool  and  un¬ 
harmed  alone  in  the  field. 

Two  other  Turks,  eager  to  avenge  their  comrade,  challenged  Cap¬ 
tain  Smith,  and,  one  after  the  other,  they  shared  the  fate  of  the  first. 
By  this  time  the  Turkish  commander  concluded  it  was  too  expensive 
an  amusement  to  furnish  to  his  lords  and  ladies  in  the  castle  walls, 
and  the  fight  ended.  The  Transylvanian  general  rewarded  Smith 
with  a  coat  of  arms  bearing  three  Turks’  heads,  and  a  purse  with 
three  hundred  ducats. 

Next  we  hear  of  our  hero  taken  prisoner  by  the  Turks,  and  sold 
as  a  slave  in  Constantinople.  There  the  young  Turkish  mistress  to 
whom  he  is  presented  as  a  servant,  loses  her  heart  to  the  gallant 
English  youth,  and  in  order  to  free  him  from  bondage  she  sends  him 
to  a  brother  in  Tartary  with  a  letter,  begging  him  to  treat  the 
stranger  well  for  her  sake.  But  the  Tartar  chief  is  furious  at  his 
sister’s  interest  in  a  slave,  and  instantly  claps  a  great  iron  collar  on 
John  Smith’s  neck,  and  sets  him  to  all  sorts  of  the  most  menial 
drudgery. 

This  is  too  hard  to  be  borne  by  an  Englishman  of  his  spirit,  and 
one  day  when  he  is  threshing  grain  in  a  secluded  place  he  has  his 
opportunity  for  escape.  His  master,  passing  by,  stops  to  taunt  him 
and  revile  him  in  such  a  way  as  he  cannot  bear,  and  Smith  suddenly 
hits  him  over  the  head  with  a  flail  and  lays  him  lifeless  ;  then  strip¬ 
ping  him  hastily  of  his  clothes,  he  dresses  himself  in  them  and  hur¬ 
ries  off  across  this  strange  wild  country.  It  takes  him  weeks  to  get 
to  a  place  of  safety,  all  the  time  in  mortal  fear  of  discovery  from  the 


THE  JAMESTOWN  COLONY. 


79 


dreadful  iron  collar  oil  his  neck,  which  he  can  by  no  means  remove. 
At  length  he  comes  to  a  Russian  settlement  on  the  River  Don,  gets 
rid  of  his  slave-badge,  and  is  furnished  with  means  to  get  among 
friends. 

Wars  and  shipwrecks,  and  moving  adventures  botli  by  land  and 
sea,  are  always  ready  to  wait  on  John  Smith.  Once  when  he  took 
passage  in  a  French  ship,  the  Roman  Catholic  sailors  insisted  that 
he  was  the  cause  of  a  dreadful  storm  which  oppressed  them,  because 
he  was  a  heretic  and  an  Englishman.  So  they  tumbled  him  over¬ 
board  into  the  raging  sea.  But  lie  swam  safely  to  a  rocky  island, 
where  another  ship  soon  picked  him  up,  and  he  was  dry  and  warm 
and  ripe  for  new  fortunes  in  a  few  hours.  Whichever  way  he  was 
thrown  he  always  came  down  on  his  feet  again  like  a  cat.  And 
when  at  twenty-eight  years  old  this  man  came  back  to  England  and 
found  every  one  excited  about  Virginia  and  planting  colonies,  he  was 
in  his  element  and  ready  to  join  the  first  expedition  which  offered. 
And  notwithstanding  his  harum-scarum  life,  Captain  John  Smith 
was  by  no  means  a  rattle-brain.  He  was  a  man  of  strong  common 
sense,  full  of  expedients,  ready  in  action,  shrewd  in  his  dealings 
with  men.  A  little  overbearing  and  fond  of  command,  as  such  a 
man  naturally  would  be.  You  will  hear  a  good  deal  about  him  in 
the  account  of  the  settlements  of  the  colonies,  or  I  should  not  have 
given  you  so  long  a  description  of  him. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE  JAMESTOWN  COLONY. 

Smith  and  Newport  explore  the  Country.  —  Smith  taken  Prisoner  by  Indians.  —  The  Young 

Pocahontas  saves  his  Life.  —  New  Arrivals  in  Jamestown.  —  Shipwreck  of  Gates  and  Somers. 

— Pocahontas  taken  Prisoner.  —  Marriage  and  Death  of  Pocahontas. 

When  the  sealed  paper  containing  the  names  of  the  rulers  of 
the  colony  was  opened,  as  I  told  you  before,  John  Smith’s  name 
was  found  to  be  among  the  number.  But  Wingfield,  always 
Smith’s  enemy,  refused  to  let  him  take  his  rightful  seat  in  the 
council.  This  did  not  make  Smith  either  sulky  or  discontented, 
and  he  at  once  joined  Captain  Newport  in  an  expedition  up  the 
river  to  explore  the  country  around  Jamestown.  In  six  weeks  they 
returned,  and  Newport  began  to  make  preparations  to  go  back  to 
England  to  bring  more  men  and  supplies.  Wingfield  tried  to  make 


80 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


Smith  go  back  also.  He  pretended  that  he  was  causing  discontent 
in  the  colony,  but  Smith  insisted  on  remaining,  and  on  his  trial 
taking  place  he  was  declared  “  not  guilty,”  by  every  voice.  So 
much  the  most  part  of  the  colonists  loved  him,  that  Wingfield 
dared  no  longer  keep  him  out  of  the  council,  and  he  was  admitted 
as  one  of  the  members. 

Now  the  colony  began  to  suffer  for  food.  Provisions  and  game 
became  very  scarce.  In  the  midst  of  the  distress  it  was  found  that 
Governor  Wingfield  was  stealing  the  public  stores  and  hiding  them 
away  that  he  might  get  rich  from  the  necessities  of  the  colony.  At 
this  he  was  quickly  turned  out  from  his  office,  and  Ratcliffe  made 
governor. 

About  this  time  sickness  of  various  kinds  began  to  prevail  in  the 
colony.  They  were  suffering  from  want  of  food,  and  from  the  great 
change  of  climate.  They  had  grown  disheartened  and  homesick. 
Through  all  their  distress  John  Smith  was  the  ruling  spirit  to  cheer 
and  encourage  them.  He  persuaded  them  to  build  comfortable  log 
houses.  He  had  a  church  built  in  Jamestown,  wdiere  they  could 
assemble  together  for  public  worship,  and  Robert  Hunt,  a  man  of 
blessed  memory,  held  services  there. 

When  affairs  were  at  the  lowest  ebb,  by  dint  of  coaxing  and 
threatening  the  Indians,  Smith  got  a  little  corn  from  them,  which 
relieved  the  distress  of  the  colony.  He  kept  up  the  spirits  of  the 
homesick  by  every  device  in  his  power.  He  found  places  where 
game  abounded,  and  induced  them  to  go  hunting.  Indeed,  at  one 
time  Captain  Smith  seems  to  have  carried  the  whole  colony  on  his 
broad,  helpful  shoulders.  Yet  his  fellows  in  the  council  so  hated 
him  for  his  very  popularity  and  the  useful  qualities  which  they 
lacked,  that  in  the  midst  of  these  labors  they  openly  rebuked  him 
because  he  had  not  yet  explored  to  its  source  the  river  on  which 
they  were  settled.  On  this,  with  a  small  party  of  men,  he  set  out 
in  a  boat  up  the  river. 

At  a  convenient  point  in  the  stream  he  left  the  boat  and  went  to 
explore  the  banks,  taking  with  him  only  one  man  and  an  Indian 
guide.  In  his  absence  some  Indians  fell  upon  the  boat’s  crew  and 
killed  them.  Then  they  set  out  upon  Smith’s  track  to  take  him  cap¬ 
tive.  They  overtook  his  companion  and  slew  him,  and  finally  came 
up  with  Smith  on  the  edge  of  a  swamp.  As  soon  as  he  saw  his  pur¬ 
suers  Smith  fastened  his  Indian  guide  to  his  arm  with  his  garter, 
using  him  for  a  shield  between  himself  and  the  enemy.  And  al- 


THE  JAMESTOWN  COLONY. 


81 


though  they  were  in  large  numbers  he  fought  so  gallantly  that  it 
was  only  when  he  was  up  to  his  knees  in  the  swamp,  and  stiff  with 
cold  and  fatigue,  that  he  gave  up.  For  some  time  after  he  had 
thrown  down  his  gun  and  offered  to  surrender,  the  Indians  dared  not 
approach  to  take  him  prisoner,  he  had  filled  them  with  such  terror. 

When  at  length  they  held  him  captive  he  diverted  them  by 
showing  them  a  pocket  compass  and  explaining  its  use.  They  car¬ 
ried  him  about  with  them  for  days,  using  his  skill  to  cure  their  sick, 
and  performing  about  him  all  sorts  of  wild  dances  and  strange  con¬ 
jurations.  At  last  they  held  a  long  consultation  as  to  what  had 
best  be  done  with  him,  and  concluded  they  must  kill  him,  since  so 
great  a  man  must  be  dangerous  to  their  race. 

Smith  himself  tells  the  story  of  his  deliverance,  which  is  so  roman¬ 
tic  that  it  has  subsequently  been  declared  false.  But  the  story  be¬ 
longs  to  the  annals  of  Virginian  history,  and  could  not  be  left  out 
of  the  story  of  its  first  colony.  It  happened  in  this  wise. 

He  was  brought  out,  as  he  declares,  bound  hand  and  foot,  his 
head  laid  on  a  flat  stone,  and  Powhatan,  the  chief,  was  preparing  to 
dash  out  his  brains  with  a  war-club,  when  suddenly  the  little  Poca¬ 
hontas,  a  daughter  of  the  chief,  ran  forward,  threw  her  arms  about 
the  neck  of  the  prisoner,  and  begged  his  life.  It  was  granted  her, 
and  Smith  was  released,  and  treated  with  every  mark  of  kindness 
and  respect. 

Whether  the  story  be  true  or  no,  Smith  came  back  to  Jamestown, 
and  found  the  members  of  the  colony  still  plotting  against  him. 
But  he  defeated  their  designs,  and  in  a  few  months,  by  the  unani¬ 
mous  desire  of  the  people,  he  was  chosen  president  of  the  council. 

At  this  time  (1608),  Newport  came  back  from  England  with  food 
and  supplies,  which,  according  to  their  wasteful  custom,  were  lavished 
and  spent,  until  they  were  as  poor  as  ever,  and  Smith  had  to  go  and 
beg  corn  of  the  natives.  In  this  year  Powhatan  planned  to  surprise 
the  colony,  and  destroy  it.  He  might  have  succeeded  in  this,  if 
Pocahontas  had  not  warned  Smith,  so  that  he  was  prepared  for 
the  attack. 

All  this  time,  Smith’s  labors  were  untiring.  He  tried  to  induce 
the  settlers  to  plant  corn  and  useful  products.  He  discouraged  the 
raising  of  so  much  tobacco  as  bad  for  their  interests.  When  all  the 
rest  had  gone  mad  over  some  glittering  sand  from  the  river’s  bed, 
which  they  thought  was  gold,  and  wanted  to  send  home  a  ship-load 
of  it,  Smith  persuaded  them  out  of  that  folly,  and  sent  instead 


82 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


a  cargo  of  cedar- wood,  which  was  a  marketable  commodity  in  Eng¬ 
land. 

In  1609,  the  company  in  London  sent  nine  ships  and  a  large 
number  of  men  to  Jamestown,  with  Sir  Thomas  Gates,  Sir  George 
Somers,  and  Captain  Newport,  as  its  leaders.  These  three  gentle¬ 
men  all  went  on  one  ship,  and  were  wrecked  off  the  Bermuda  Islands. 
Seven  out  of  the  nine  ships  came  safely  to  Virginia.  But  the  men 
sent  were  poor  material  to  build  up  a  colony  in  a  wilderness.  In¬ 
stead  of  the  hardy,  industrious  mechanics  and  workmen,  who  were 
wanted  there,  they  had  sent  ship-loads  of  men  who  were  idle  and 
good  for  nothing  at  home,  and  worse  than  useless  in  America. 

As  they  had  still  no  leader,  Smith  retained  the  command,  and 
with  great  difficulty  tried  to  keep  order  among  them.  At  length 
he  was  so  severely  wounded  by  an  explosion  of  gunpowder,  that  he 
was  forced  to  go  back  to  England  to  be  healed.  We  shall  hear  of 
John  Smith  again,  but  not  in  Virginia,  for  he  never  after  returned 
there. 

Six  months  after  Smith  had  returned  to  England,  Newport,  Gates, 
and  Somers,  who  I  told  you  had  been  wrecked  on  one  of  the  Bermu¬ 
das,  made  their  appearance  in  the  colony.  They  had  rigged  up  one 
of  their  wrecked  vessels,  built  a  small  pinnace  from  the  remains  of 
the  other,  and  got  off  safely.  The  Bermuda  Islands  were  uninhab¬ 
ited,  and  supposed  to  be  barren,  but  the  shipwrecked  crew  had  suf¬ 
fered  no  lack  of  provisions.  They  had  found  plenty  of  swine  run¬ 
ning  wild  all  over  the  island,  which  furnished  them  with  abundance 
of  fresh  meat.  Many  conjectures  were  raised  to  account  for  the 
presence  of  the  hogs  there.  It  is  probable  that  a  Spanish  ship, 
loaded  with  supplies  for  its  colonies,  in  the  West  Indies,  had  touched 
at  the  same  point,  and  left  some  swine  which  had  multiplied  till  they 
filled  the  island.  It  was  a  fortunate  circumstance  for  Somers  and 
his  company,  for  it  not  only  saved  their  lives  while  there,  but  they 
were  able  to  salt  enough  to  furnish  them  with  food  to  Virginia. 

Of  course  the  shipwrecked  wanderers  expected  to  find  plenty  of 
provisions  in  Jamestown,  and  it  did  not  occur  to  them  to  salt  down 
any  pork  for  their  use.  It  would  have  been  well  if  they  had  done 
so,  for  on  arriving  in  James  River  they  found  their  friends  in  a 
state  of  great  distress  and  destitution.  John  Smith  was  gone,  and 
there  was  nobody  else  who  could  bring  order  out  of  confusion,  and 
make  plans  for  their  relief. 

Sir  George  Somers  offered  to  take  the  pinnace  they  had  built 


THE  JAMESTOWN  COLONY. 


83 


and  go  back  to  the  Bermudas,  and  bring  her  back  filled  with  provis¬ 
ions,  but  they  would  not  accept  the  offer.  Sir  Thomas  Gates  was 
appointed  governor,  and  was  so  inefficient  to  keep  Tip  the  spirits  of 
the  colony,  that  they  all  agreed  to  desert  Jamestown  and  go  to 
Newfoundland,  to  seek  food  and  passage  home  from  English  ships 
there.  Their  preparations  to  leave  were  nearly  completed,  when 
they  saw  three  ships  with  the  English  flag  at  their  mast-head,  sail¬ 
ing  up  the  river.  That  was  a  welcome  sight.  It  was  Lord  De  la 
Ware,  with  provisions  and  men  for  their  relief.  This  lord  had 
been  appointed  governor  of  Virginia  by  the  London  Company. 
You  will  remember  his  name  easily,  because  the  little  State  of  Del¬ 
aware  has  been  named  for  him. 

He  did  many  good  things  for  the  colony.  He  fought  the  Indians 
who  had  been  hostile,  strengthened  the  fort,  and  set  up  a  trading 
port  where  the  Indians  and  whites  might  trade  peaceably  together. 
Then,  his  health  failing  him,  he  returned  to  England. 

After  him  Sir  Thomas  Dale  came  to  be  governor,  with  another 
ship-load  of  colonists,  and  in  a  year  or  two  Sir  Thomas  Gates,  who 
had  been  back  to  the  old  country,  returned  with  three  hundred  col¬ 
onists. 

They  had  still  much  trouble  with  the  Indians,  and  Powhatan, 
father  of  Pocahontas,  was  not  disposed  to  be  friendly.  During  Sir 
Thomas  Dale’s  governorship,  it  was  proposed  that  the  young  Indian 
princess  should  be  taken  as  a  hostage  till  her  father  should  make 
peace  with  the  English.  This  was  accordingly  done,  and  the  young 
Indian  girl  was  kept  on  board  ship  in  the  harbor.  I  hope  she  was 
a  willing  hostage,  for  she  deserved  nothing  but  kind  treatment  from 
the  white  man,  as  she  seems  always  to  have  been  his  devoted  friend 
and  ally.  She  was  now  a  young  maiden  of  nineteen,  and  is  said  to 
have  been  really  beautiful.  At  any  rate  she  was  charming  enough 
to  win  the  heart  of  a  young  Englishman  named  John  Rolfe,  who 
wished  to  make  her  his  wife.  The  consent  of  the  governor  of  the 
colony,  and  of  Powhatan,  was  obtained,  and  in  1613  Pocahontas  was 
married  in  Jamestown.  Before  her  marriage  she  was  baptized  and 
christened  by  the  name  of  Rebecca.  But  by  this  name  she  has  never 
been  called,  and  history  knows  her  only  as  Pocahontas. 

After  her  marriage  she  went  to  London,  was  introduced  at  court, 
and  presented  to  King  James.  Every  one  was  eager  to  see  this 
young  Indian  princess  and  English  bride.  While  in  England  a 
little  son  was  born  to  her,  who  afterward  returned  to  Virginia,  and 


84 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


whose  descendants  are  said  to  be  living  to  this  day.  In  the  spring 

of  1617,  as  Pocahontas  was 
just  on  the  point  of  em¬ 
barking  for  America,  she 
was  taken  ill,  and  died. 

There  are  few  stories 
in  history  more  romantic 
than  that  of  Pocahontas. 
To  the  imagination,  this 
dusky  maiden,  reared 
among  savages,  appears 
like  a  wild  dower  of  the 
forest.  And  like  the  wild 
dower,  which  droops  and 
dies  when  transplanted  to 
garden  or  hot-house,  so 
this  little  wild  maiden  died 
soon  after  she  was  taken 
from  her  native  soil. 

Pocahontas.  After  the  marriage  of 

his  daughter,  Powhatan  kept  peace  with  the  English  during  the  rest 
of  his  life ;  and  the  colonists  did  not  suffer  from  Indian  warfare 
until  by  his  death  his  brother  Opecancanougli  became  chief  of  the 
tribes  in  Virginia. 

Opecancanougli  was  not  of  so  peaceful  a  temper  as  Powhatan, 
and  in  1622  he  made  an  attack  on  Jamestown  and  all  the  country 
around,  and  massacred  hundreds  of  white  men.  In  a  few  months 
the  number  of  colonists  was  reduced  from  4,000  to  2,500.  Whole 
families  were  butchered  on  distant  plantations,  without  opportunity 
for  defense,  and  the  name  of  Opecancanougli  was  a  word  of  terror 
in  Virginia. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE  PLANTER  IN  VIRGINIA. 

How  a  Settlement  was  begun.  —  Exports  of  the  Colonists.  —  Choosing  Sites  for  Plantations.  — 
Slavery  introduced  into  Virginia.  —  Buying  a  Wife  with  Tobacco. — Life  in  England  in 
1607.  —  A  Virginia  Planter’s  House  in  1649. 

Before  I  go  any  farther  with  the  history  of  the  English  colonies 
in  America,  I  want  to  give  you  an  idea  of  the  kind  of  people  who 


THE  PLANTER  IN  VIRGINIA. 


85 


came  to  Virginia  to  settle,  what  sort  of  homes  they  made  in  the 
wilderness,  and  how  they  finally  made  Virginia  a  successful  colony. 

When  these  colonies,  which  were  sent  from  England,  landed  on 
these  shores,  of  course  their  first  impulse  was  to  provide  some  kind 
of  houses  to  shelter  them.  This  they  did  by  cutting  down  trees 
and  making  log-houses  for  themselves,  and  a  fort  into  which  all 
could  retire  in  case  of  an  attack  froiYi  the  Indians. 

They  were  often  very  careless  about  providing  for  winter,  by 
planting  corn  and  laying  in  stores  of  provisions,  and  for  the  first 
two  or  three  years  relied  on  ships  from  England  to  bring  them  sup¬ 
plies.  But  as  soon  as  they  were  able  to  provide  for  themselves,  the 
London  Company  demanded  that  they  should  send  something  home 
to  pay  for  the  expense  of  fitting  out  so  many  ships  and  men.  You 
can  see  the  company  must  have  spent  a  great  deal  of  money,  and 
that  they  were  a  long  time  getting  any  return  for  it. 

All  these  early  colonists  had  a  strong  hope  of  finding  gold  and 
rich  treasures  in  Virginia,  as  Cortez  and  Pizarro  had  found  it  in 
Peru  and  Mexico ;  and  at  first  rumors  were  constantly  afloat  of  dis¬ 
coveries  of  gold,  now  in  one  place  and  then  in  another.  In  John 
Smith’s  governorship,  they  were  about  to  load  a  ship  with  glittering 
sand,  which  they  had  dug  up  in  the  river’s  bed  and  supposed  to  be 
gold. 

When  they  learned  by  repeated  disappointments  that  there  was 
no  gold  nor  silver  to  be  found,  they  very  wisely  turned  their  atten¬ 
tion  to  the  natural  productions  of  the  country.  In  the  first  place, 
there  was  plenty  of  timber,  which  was  exceedingly  welcome  in 
England,  where  there  Avas  a  great  Avant  of  building  material  for 
ships  and  houses.  The  huge  trees  in  Virginia  astonished  the  colo¬ 
nists.  “  One  fir-tree  in  Virginia  is  able  to  make  a  main-mast  for 
the  greatest  ship  in  England,”  Avrites  one  of  the  new-comers  home  to 
his  relatives  in  England.  Consequently,  they  soon  began  to  cut 
down  the  timber,  and  to  suav  it  up  into  clapboards  and  masts,  and 
beams  and  door-posts,  and  all  kinds  of  boards.  Then  also  they  be¬ 
gan  to  manufacture  wood-ashes,  and  pitch  and  tar,  to  send  back  to 
England.  Previously  pot  and  soap  ashes  had  been  brought  from 
Prussia,  and  commanded  a  high  price,  but  now  the  colonies  furnished 
them  plentifully,  and  at  a  cheap  rate.  The  tar  and  pitch  was  ob¬ 
tained  from  the  numberless  pine-trees  of  the  forest.  Then  they 
sent  great  stores  of  deer  and  beaver  skins,  bought  of  the  Indians, 
and  quantities  of  salted  fish  caught  all  along  the  sea-coast.  But  the 
main  staple  of  export  in  the  colony  was  tobacco. 


86 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


This  weed  —  which  perhaps  it  would  have  been  quite  as  well  if  the 
white  man  had  never  learned  to  use  —  had  been  introduced  into  Eng¬ 
land  more  than  twenty  years  before.  As  near  as  we  can  find  out, 
the  homesick  colony  of  Raleigh’s,  which  Sir  Francis  Drake  had  taken 
back  to  England  in  his  ship  in  1586,  carried  this  plant  home  with 
them.  Sir  Walter  began  to  smoke  a  pipe  immediately,  and  in  Queen 
Elizabeth's  time,  tobacco  was  fashionable,  but  very  scarce. 

As  soon  as  the  colony  at  Jamestown  tilled  the  soil  to  any  extent, 
they  began  to  raise  tobacco.  King  James,  who  was  a  strange  man, 
—  a  mixture  of  learning  and  foolishness,  —  strongly  discouraged  the 
culture  of  tobacco.  He  thought  it  was  not  a  good  thing  for  the 
colony,  and  wrote  a  book  to  prove  it  was  unwholesome.  On  this 

the  company  tried  to  substitute  other 
things  in  its  place.  There  were  many 
mulberry-trees,  on  whose  leaves  the  lit¬ 
tle  silk-worm  which  spins  silk  depends 
for  food.  This  led  them  to  try  and 
raise  silk  in  Virginia.  But  this  project 
failed.  Silk  is  not  a  good  product  for  a 
colony  in  a  wilderness,  always  on  the 
look-out  for  danger  and  attacks  from 
Indians.  The  worms  soon  died,  and 
there  was  an  end  of  silk -culture. 

Then  the  company  sent  out  some 
Dutch  and  Germans,  and  set  them  to 
glass-making  and  other  manufactures. 
The  English  themselves  at  this  time 
did  not  know  how  to  make  glass,  and 
were  very  poor  manufacturers,  so  they 
called  in  the  aid  of  these  foreigners, 
thinking  they  would  teach  their  colonies 
these  arts.  But  I  cannot  find  that  much  came  of  these  attempts. 
Nothing  succeeded  like  tobacco,  and  for  a.  long  time  that  was  the 
principal  export. 

There  were  two  classes  of  colonists  in  the  early  settlement  of  A  ir- 
ginia.  The  first  class  was  that  of  the  “  master-planter,”  who  owned 
a  share  in  the  colony,  or  had  purchased  lands  of  the  company  in 
London.  These  gentlemen  paid  their  passage  on  the  ships,  and 
took  many  comforts  from  England  abroad  with  them.  When  they 
arrived  they  selected  their  lands  and  chose  sites  for  their  houses. 


Tobacco  Plant. 


THE  PLANTER  IN  VIRGINIA. 


87 


One  planter  sought  for  a  pleasant  spring  of  water  near  which  to 
build ;  another  sought  a  green  slope  by  the  bank  of  a  river  where 
fish  abounded  ;  still  another  found  a  good  building  site  near  a  wood, 
where  game  and  quantities  of  wild  fowl  could  be  shot ;  and  others, 
no  doubt,  half  homesick  at  heart,  saw  a  little  spot  which  reminded 
them  of  their  own  bonny  England,  and  so  pitched  their  tents  or  put 
up  their  log-houses  there.  Thus,  in  a  few  years,  many  such  planta¬ 
tions  in  the  midst  of  tobacco  fields  and  corn-fields,  abounded  all  about 
Jamestown,  and  even  extended  into  other  townships  and  counties. 

As  soon  as  the  planters  got  possession  of  these  large  tracts  they 
found  they  could  not  cultivate  them  all  with  their  own  hands,  and 
as  there  were  no  people  in  this  country  who  could  be  hired  to  do  the 
hard  work,  the  managers  in  London  set  themselves  at  once  to  work 
to  provide  for  the  want  of  laborers. 

They  induced  many  young  men  to  join  the  colony,  on  condition 
that  they  should  go  passage-free  and  be  provided  with  all  necessary 
food,  clothing,  and  tools  to  work  with  for  one  year.  In  return,  each 
of  these  men  must  choose  a  master  among  the  planters,  and  serve 
on  the  land  for  seven  years.  These  formed  a  second  class,  who 
were  called  “  bound  servants.”  These  men  had  an  excellent  oppor¬ 
tunity  to  go  to  work  and  secure  plantations  of  their  own.  The 
allotted  working  hours  were  only  from  six  till  ten  in  the  morning, 
and  from  two  till  four  in  the  afternoon,  and  a  prudent  servant 
could  get  a  little  patch  of  tobacco  to  cultivate  on  his  own  account ; 
from  which  he  could  sell  the  product,  and  lay  up  a  nice  little  sum 
to  buy  a  farm. 

Still  there  was  danger  that  the  master  on  a  lonely  plantation,  if 
he  were  not  a  good  and  just  man,  might  abuse  his  power  over  these 
bound  servants  ;  and  it  was  not  altogether  easy  to  get  free-born  Eng¬ 
lishmen  to  sign  away  their  freedom  for  seven  years ;  so  the  great 
want  in  the  colony,  for  hands  to  do  the  labor,  still  continued. 

In  1620,  a  Dutch  ship,  which  had  been  trading  to  the  East  Indies, 
stopped  at  Jamestown,  and  sold  them  twenty  negroes  as  servants 
for  life.  These  were  the  first  slaves  ever  sold  to  the  English,  al¬ 
though  the  Spaniards  had  been  importing  negroes  into  their  colonies 
for  many  years,  and  English  ships  and  sea-captains  had  engaged  in 
the  traffic.  You  must  bear  in  mind  this  first  landing  of  negro  slaves, 
for  it  set  the  root  of  a  great  evil  in  these  new  colonies.  Still,  so 
pressing  was  the  demand  for  labor,  that  at  length  it  was  resolved  in 
England  to  transport  ship-loads  of  criminals  and  felons  from  prisons 


88 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


and  jails,  and  bind  them  to  the  planters  as  servants.  This  was  not 
a  very  wholesome  thing  for  the  colony,  for  it  brought  much  vice  and 
idleness  into  the  new  clean  land.  Still  it  was  not  quite  so  bad  then 
as  it  would  seem  now.  For  in  those  days  men  were  imprisoned  for 
debt,  and  other  much  lighter  crimes  than  we  put  people  in  prison 
for  nowadays.  No  doubt  many  of  these  condemned  men  were  not 
hardened  criminals,  and  became  honest  men  when  they  had  once 
more  a  chance  to  begin  life  in  the  young  colony. 

Another  great  want  was  the  presence  of  women  among  them. 
Many  of  the  young  men  who  were  idle  or  unsettled  would  become 
steady  citizens,  if  they  could  get  tidy  little  wives  to  take  care  of 
their  homes.  Therefore,  in  1619,  the  company  sent  over  ninety 
respectable  young  women  as  wives  for  the  unmarried  men.  Each 
man  who  took  a  wife  in  this  way  must  pay  for  the  expense  of  bring¬ 
ing  her  over  from  England.  As  there  was  little  money,  debts  were 
frequently  paid  in  tobacco,  so  that  a  wife  cost  the  young  man  one 
hundred  pounds  of  tobacco,  hnd  some  paid  as  high  as  one  hundred 
and  twenty-five  or  one  hundred  and  fifty  pounds.  It  must  have 
been  a  funny  sight  to  see  these  bachelors  go  to  Jamestown  to  choose 
them  a  wife.  After  they  had  paid  their  tobacco,  I  hope  each  had 
the  privilege  of  choosing  the  one  who  pleased  him  best.  As  the 
prettiest  young  women  were  doubtless  picked  out  first,  the  one  who 
came  last  must  have  had  rather  a  sorry  choice  in  point  of  good  looks. 

This  bringing  over  of  decent  young  women  did  much  good,  and 
helped  to  the  prosperity  of  Virginia.  When  the  young  man  got 
his  wife  and  his  log-house,  saw  his  children  playing  about  his  door, 
and  his  fields  of  tobacco  and  corn  spreading  about  him,  he  began  to 
feel  as  if  this  new  country  was  home,  and  ceased  to  long  to  go  back 
to  England. 

When  you  hear  of  the  log-houses  and  the  rude  manner  in  which 
the  early  settlers  lived,  it  may  seem  to  you  that  it  was  very  diffi¬ 
cult  for  men  who  had  been  brought  up  in  a  civilized  country  to 
endure  such  a  life.  But  even  in  England,  in  those  days,  the  man¬ 
ner  of  living  was  not  very  luxurious.  Carpets  were  hardly  to  be 
found  in  the  houses  of  the  wealthiest.  Glass  windows  were  not 
seen  except  in  the  houses  of  the  rich,  and  even  then  the  nobleman 
who  owned  a  set  of  glass  windows  took  them  about  when  he  went 
from  one  of  his  houses  to  another,  as  we  take  our  chairs  and  sofas. 
The  common  people  of  England,  even  the  respectable  classes,  lived 
in  houses  where  the  floor  was  earth  —  perhaps  instead  of  a  carpet, 


THE  PLANTER  IN  VIRGINIA. 


89 


—  tliickly  strewn  with  rushes.  For  beds  they  had  coarse  bags  filled 
with  straw,  and  frequently  a  log  of  wood  for  a  pillow.  Their  food 
was  of  the  plainest  kind,  and  wheat  bread  was  rarely  seen  except  on 
the  tables  of  the  nobles.  The  people  ate  barley  bread,  which  was 
very  dark  and  coarse.  And  though  England  is  now  a  garden, 
abounding  in  beautiful  farms,  at  the  time  Virginia  was  settled,  the 
country  of  Holland  was  the  market-garden  of  England,  and  most  of 
her  vegetables  were  imported  from  thence.  To  complete  our  idea 
of  England  we  must  remember  that  they  had  no  telegraphs,  no  rail¬ 
roads,  no  steam-sliips,  no  gas  for  lighting  houses  ;  the  streets  of 
their  cities  wrere  not  paved ;  in  the  evening  the  streets  were  not 
lighted.  So  after  all,  in  coming  to  this  country,  so  fertile,  so  pleas¬ 
ant  in  climate,  abounding  in  fruits  and  fish  and  game,  the  first  set¬ 
tlers  did  not  have  so  many  luxuries  to  leave  behind  them  as  we 
should  miss  to-day,  if  we  went  to  live  in  some  new,  wild  land. 

And  in  manufacturing  enterprise,  this  country  soon  rivaled  Eng¬ 
land.  In  1650  England  had  not  a  saw-mill  in  all  her  length  and 
breadth,  and  that  year  saw  one  built  in  Virginia.  Up  to  that  time 
all  boards  had  been  sawed  by  hand.  Think  of  all  the  boards  being 
made  in  that  way.  No  wonder  they  could  not  afford  to  have  them 
for  floors.  Glass  was  made  in  Virginia,  too,  almost  as  early  as  it 
was  made  in  England.  At  first  they  used  oiled  paper  to  let  in  the 
light.  But  by  1650  they  had  made  great  improvements.  A  num¬ 
ber  of  brick  houses,  with  real  glass  windows,  had  been  built  in 
Jamestown.  All  over  the  country  the  planters  were  growing  rich 
with  their  corn-fields  and  tobacco  fields.  They  had  thrifty  orchards, 
too,  and  cider  presses,  and  stores  of  oats,  wheat,  and  barley. 

Already  the  country  began  to  look  comfortable  and  flourishing. 
Here  is  a  little  description  of  a  planter’s  house,  written  by  a  gentle¬ 
man  visiting  in  Virginia  in  1619,  when  the  colony  was  forty-two 
years  old  :  — 

“  Worthy  Captain  Matthew  is  an  old  planter  of  thirty  years’ 
standing.  I  must  not  omit  to  let  you  know  this  gentleman’s  in¬ 
dustry.  He  hath  a  fine  house  and  all  things  answerable  to  it ;  he 
sows  yearly  stores  of  flax  and  hemp,  and  causes  it  to  be  spun  ;  he 
keeps  weavers,  and  has  a  tan-house  where  he  causes  leather  to  be 
dressed ;  hath  eight  shoemakers  employed  in  their  trade ;  hath 
forty  negro  servants,  and  brings  them  up  to  trade  in  his  house.  He 
sows  abundance  of  wheat,  barley,  rye,  etc.  ;  hath  abundance  of  kine, 
a  brave  dairy,  swine  in  great  store,  and  in  a  word,  keeps  a  good 


90 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


house,  lives  bravely,  and  is  a  true  lover  of  Virginia.  He  is  worthy 
of  much  honor.”  Add  to  this  that  he  kept  fine  horses  ;  entertained 
his  infrequent  guests  most  hospitably  ;  was  a  firm  believer  in  the 
King  of  England,  and  in  the  Church  of  England,  and  you  can  under¬ 
stand  very  well  what  kind  of  man  the  Virginia  planter  was  when 
the  colony  was  forty  years  old.  Now  I  will  introduce  you  to  a  very 
different  kind  of  man,  —  The  New  England  Planter. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

A  CHAPTER  OF  ENGLISH  HISTORY. 

John  Smith  sets  out  on  another  Voyage.  —  Queen  Elizabeth  and  her  Father.  —  Bloody  Mary 
persecutes  the  Protestants.  — The  Puritans. —  The  Cavaliers.  —  The  Puritan  Emigrants  in 
Holland.  —  They  resolve  to  buy  Lands  in  America. 

In  the  year  1614,  Captain  John  Smith,  who  had  been  in  England 
ever  since  his  return  from  Virginia,  set  out  on  a  new  voyage.  You 
remember  I  told  you  the  gentlemen  who  owned  the  patent  to  settle 
in  America  had  divided  into  two  companies,  the  London  and  the 
Plymouth  companies.  The  Plymouth  Company  owned  the  north¬ 
ern  country,  and  this  time  John  Smith  went  in  their  service.  He 
went  in  and  out  the  inlets  of  the  coast  of  Maine,  sailed  to  Massachu¬ 
setts  and  Cape  Cod  bays.  Landing  several  times  he  collected  a 
good  stock  of  furs  and  fish,  and  went  back  to  England.  He  drew 
a  map  of  this  country,  and  named  many  of  the  gulfs,  bays,  and 
islands.  To  the  whole  region  that  he  had  explored  he  gave  the 
name, of  New  England. 

To  only  one  group  of  small  islands  did  this  brave  fellow  give  his 
own  name.  This  is  the  Isle  of  Shoals,  a  rocky  little  group  off  the 
shores  of  Massachusetts  and  New  Hampshire.  He  also  named  a 
cape  on  the  coast  of  Massachusetts,  now  called  Cape  Ann,  uTraga- 
higzandaP  in  honor  of  the  Turkish  lady  who  had  loved  him  when 
he  was  a  captive  in  Turkey.  It  was  such  a  hard  name  I  think  the 
people  found  it  too  difficult  to  pronounce,  and  so  it  was  soon 
changed. 

When  Smith  got  back  he  made  arrangements  to  go  again  with  a 
colony,  and  did  start  in  1615.  Before  he  was  fairly  out  to  sea 
his  vessel  was  attacked  by  some  French  ships,  which  were  not  much 
better  than  pirates,  and  Smith  was  taken  on  board  and  kept  prisoner 


A  CHAPTER  OF  ENGLISH  HISTORY. 


91 


for  some  time.  His  vessel  got  away,  leaving  him  in  the  hands  of 
the  enemy,  and  the  expedition,  which  had  thus  lost  its  leader,  was 
ruined.  One  night  in  the  dark  he  slipped  down  the  side  of  the 
French  ship,  cut  loose  a  small  boat  which  was  fastened  to  her,  and 
after  great  tossing  about  in  stormy  waters,  reached  England.  He 
wrote  after  this  two  or  three  very  interesting  books  about  this  coun¬ 
try,  but  never  came  here  again. 

From  this  time  little  more  is  heard  of  him.  When  Pocahontas 
became  Mrs.  Rebecca  Rolfe,  and  was  visiting  England,  Smith  went 
to  see  her,  and  that  is  the  last  thing  we  hear  of  him,  except  the  fact 
of  his  death,  which  happened  in  1631.  I  hope  he  had  a  pleasant 
home  with  wife  and  children  to  make  his  last  days  happy.  He  tells 
us  that  he  spent  many  hundreds  of  pounds  in  Virginia  and  his  voy¬ 
ages  to  New  England,  and  yet,  he  says,  “  In  neither  of  these  countries 
have  I  one  foot  of  land,  nor  the  very  house  I  budded,  nor  the  ground 
I  digged  with  mine  own  hands.”  Like  Columbus,  he  might  have 
said,  “  Thus  the  world  rewards  those  who  serve  it,  ”  — for  truly  no 
man  served  the  colonies  so  effectually  as  Captain  John  Smith,  of 
whose  after  life  and  death  no  record  remains. 

Before  I  go  on  to  tell  you  anything  about  the  first  colony  in  New 
England,  I  must  explain  briefly  some  religious  matters  in  Eng¬ 
land  which  have  much  to  do  with  this  history. 

You  remember  the  great  Queen  Elizabeth  who  has  been  men¬ 
tioned  before  in  these  pages.  Her  father  was  King  of  England  many 
years  before  her  reign,  and  was  known  as  Henry  the  Eighth.  This 
king  had  a  quarrel  with  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  Up  to  his 
time,  England,  like  all  the  rest  of  Europe,  had  been  Catholic.  All 
Roman  Catholic  countries  had  to  acknowledge  the  rule  of  the  Pope 
at  Rome,  who  was  called  “  The  Head  of  the  Church.”  But  Henry 
the  Eighth,  who  did  not  believe  in  anybody  but  himself,  and  did  not 
like  a  Pope  over  his  head  telling  him  what  to  do,  one  day  said  he 
would  be  the  head  of  his  own  church,  and  it  should  be  the  “  Church 
of  England.” 

This  made  a  great  hubbub  in  the  nation.  Some  of  the  people 
said  they  would  not  give  up  the  Pope,  and  most  of  the  priests  de¬ 
clared  the  same  thing.  But  a  great  many  others  were  very  glad  of 
the  change  and  helped  it  on. 

When  Henry  died  his  young  son  Edward  was  king.  He  was  in 
favor  of  the  Church  of  England  party.  But  he  died  very  young, 
und  the  crown  went  to  his  sister  Mary.  Mary  was  a  Roman  Catli- 


92 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


olic,  and  she  brought  back  the  priests  and  bishops  of  the  Church  of 
Rome,  and  told  the  Pope  he  was  head  of  the  church  again,  and 
tried  to  make  all  as  it  was  before. 

In  the  mean  time,  a  great  many  people  in  Germany  and  France 
had  begun  to  be  tired  of  the  Pope  too,  and  declared  boldly  that 
they  wanted  a  simpler  and  purer  worship  than  that  of  Rome. 
These  people  were  called  Protestants.  You  remember  the  Protest¬ 
ants  in  France  were  called  Huguenots. 

A  good  many  people  in  England  had  also  become  Protestants, 
and  Queen  Mary  had  hard  work  to  turn  them  into  Romanists  agaim 
When  she  could  not  do  it  by  persuasion,  she  tried  the  very  simple 
mode  of  hanging,  or  burning,  or  any  other  of  those  means  formerly 
employed  in  converting  people  who  did  not  believe  as  the  stronger 
party  believed.  So  many  people  were  thus  murdered  in  her  reign 
that  this  queen  has  always  since  been  called  “  Bloody  Mary." 

Well,  Bloody  Mary  died,  and  Queen  Elizabeth  came  to  the 
throne.  She  was  a  Protestant.  Like  her  father  she  would  not  have 
any  Pope  over  her  head,  and  was  determined  to  choose  her  own 
priests  and  govern  her  own  church. 

They  had  the  great  fight  all  over  again,  only  this  time  the  Prot¬ 
estants  persecuted  the  Romanists,  and  torturing,  imprisoning,  hang¬ 
ing,  burning,  and  the  other  modes  of  conversion  went  on  as  briskly 
as  before.  They  did  not  call  this  queen  “  Bloody  Elizabeth,” 
though  ;  because  she  was  so  successful,  nobody  dared  call  her  dis¬ 
agreeable  names.  Instead,  they  called  her  “  Good  Queen  Bess." 

After  Elizabeth  came  James  Stuart,  son  of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots, 
as  unkingly  a  king  as  ever  wore  a  crown.  Ilis  mother  had  been  a 
Roman  Catholic,  but  he  was  pledged  to  join  the  Church  of  England. 
The  church  in  Elizabeth’s  time,  and  in  his  time,  held  to  nearly  all 
the  ceremonies  and  beliefs  of  the  Romish  Church,  and  was  almost  as 
tyrannical  over  those  who  did  not  conform  to  it. 

Now  many  English  Protestants  had  been  driven  into  Germany  in 
“  Bloody  Mary’s”  reign,  and  had  got  a  good  many  new  ideas  there. 
The  thoughtful  people  had  seen  so  much  of  empty  parades,  of  altar 
lights,  saying  masses,  false  miracles,  and  all  sort  of  deceptions 
practiced  by  the  priests  on  the  people,  that  they  were  inclined  to 
worship  God  purely  and  simply  without  any  forms  whatever. 
When  they  came  back  to  England  in  Elizabeth’s  time,  and  found 
the  church  very  like  that  of  Rome  in  all  save  the  Pope,  they  were 
grievously  disappointed. 


A  CHAPTER  OF  ENGLISH  HISTORY.  93 

They  cried  out,  “We  have  been  banished,  and  imprisoned,  and 
lost  property  and  homes  to  get  rid  of  Popery  and  worship  God  in 
our  own  fashion,  and  we  don't  want  to  conform  to  the  Church  of 
England.” 

Then  Queen  Elizabeth  said  they  should  conform,  and  when  she 
said  a  thing  she  meant  it.  But  these  people,  who  were  called  Non¬ 
conformists,  Dissenters,  Presbyterians,  and  most  of 
all,  Puritans,  kept  increasing  every  year  till  there 
grew  to  be  a  large  body  of  them.  When  King  James 
came  to  the  throne  he  promised  to  let  them  alone  in 
peace,  but  as  it  was  never  the  habit  of  his  family  to 
keep  their  promises  he  did  not  keep  this. 

But  the  Puritans  were  still  a  growing  party  in 
England.  Of  course  they  were  much  the  smallest 
party,  because  all  the  ease-loving  people,  or  people 
who  did  not  like  change,  or  did  not  think  much 
about  religion  so  long  as  they  were  comfortable,  op-  a  Puritan, 
posed  them.  But  the  Puritans  were  men  who  did  think,  who  could 
not  sleep  o’  nights  for  thinking,  and  being  persistent  and  persevering 
they  were  a  troublesome  party  even  when  a  small  one. 

Nearly  all  the  court  people  and  noblemen  clung  to  the  Established 
Church,  or  Church  of  England.  They  were  called  Cavaliers ,  to  dis¬ 
tinguish  them  from  the  Puritans.  Cavalier  meant  a  gay,  gallant 
gentleman  ;  and  the  name  was  a  great  deal  more  pleasant  sounding 
than  Puritan,  and  they  were  much  more  winning  and  pleasant  to  look 
at  than  the  latter  class.  In  those  days  the  rich  gentlemen  dressed  in 
fanciful  suits  of  bright  colored  velvets  and  satins,  trimmed  with  gold 
and  silver  laces  ;  their  breeches  were  short  at  the  knee  and  ended  in 
ruffles  of  fine  lace  ;  their  hats  were  decorated  with  long  plumes ; 
their  hands  half  hidden  by  the  rich  laces  on  the  wrist-bands  ;  they 
wore  flowing  beards  ;  their  locks  were  long,  and  scented  and  curled 
like  a  woman’s  hair ;  indeed  these  men  were  as  fond  of  the  newest 
fashions  in  garments  as  a  fine  lady  of  to-day.  Add  to  this  descrip¬ 
tion  that  they  uttered  plentiful  oaths,  were  generous,  light-hearted, 
unprincipled,  with  swords  ready  to  fly  from  their  scabbards  on  the 
slightest  pretext  for  a  quarrel,  and  you  have  a  picture  of  the  English 
courtier  in  the  reign  of  the  Stuarts  in  England. 

The  Puritan  was  of  a  different  fashion.  He  wore  sober  colored 
clothes  either  black  or  purple,  plainly  cut.  His  hair  was  cropped  and 
his  chin  shaven.  Because  his  hair  was  kept  so  closely  cut  and  his 


94 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


chin  so  beardless,  he  was  called  “  Roundhead  ”  by  the  Cavaliers. 
He  uttered  no  oaths  and  was  slower  to  quarrel.  Ilis  speech  was 
slow  and  measured.  He  discouraged  mirth,  and  took  life  in  solemn 
earnest. 

You  can  see  that  the  beauty  and  grace,  the  bright  colors  and  en¬ 
joyment  of  life,  were  pretty  much  all  on  the  Cavalier  side,  while  the 
Puritans  had  generally  the  greater  worth  and  manliness,  and  the 
rigid  virtues. 

I  am  nearing  the  end  of  my  long  departure  from  the  main  road 
of  my  story.  In  King  James’s  time  many  Puritans,  driven  by  perse¬ 
cution,  had  settled  in  the  country  of  Holland,  on  the  sea-coast.  A 
little  party  were  at  Leyden  with  their  minister,  Mr.  John  Robinson, 
a  very  devout  and  pious  man.  These  people  heard  much  about  the 
new  colonies.  I  presume  they  read  the  published  accounts  of  the 
new  colonies  in  Virginia,  and  the  efforts  of  the  London  Company  to 
make  settlements  there.  At  any  rate,  they  resolved  to  take  their 
goods  and  families  and  go  to  America  to  make  a  home. 

They  did  not  feel  at  home  in  Holland.  The  people  around  them 
spoke  another  language  and  had  other  customs.  They  feared  their 
children  growing  up  might  be  absorbed  into  the  inhabitants  of  the 
country,  and  all  trace  of  their  birth  and  the  religion  they  cherished 
so  carefully  be  lost.  So  they  sent  two  of  their  number,  John  Carver 
and  Robert  Cushman,  to  England,  to  purchase  the  right  from  the 
Plymouth  Company  to  settle  in  their  domains  of  North  Virginia. 
They  finally  obtained  this  right  from  the  company,  on  terms 
which  were  pretty  hard  for  themselves  and  advantageous  to  the 
company.  Then  they  tried  to  get  the  good  will  of  King  James. 
But  the  king,  who  had  declared  he  would  make  the  Puritans  ‘‘con¬ 
form  or  he  would  harry  them  out  of  his  kingdom,”  would  promise 
nothing  at  all.  They  were  obliged  to  be  contented  with  the  fact 
that  he  did  not  prevent  them  from  going. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

EMIGRATION  OF  PILGRIMS. 

The  Mayflower  sets  sail  from  Plymouth.  — Landing  in  Massachusetts.  — Treaty  with  Massasoit. 
—  Struggles  of  the  Colony.  —  Massachusetts  Bay  Colon}’-  formed. —  The  Apostle  of  the  In¬ 
dians. 

In  the  year  1620  this  band  of  people  from  Holland  agreed  to  set 
sail.  They  had  taken  the  name  of  Pilgrims  —  the  old  title  of  those 


EMIGRATION  OF  PILGRIMS. 


95 


pious  wanderers  who  journeyed  with  scrip  and  staff  to  the  Holy 
Land,  or  the  shrine  of  some  saint  where  they  wished  to  worship. 


Pilgrims  Embarking. 


These  Pilgrims,  also  journeying  to  find  a  place  to  plant  their  shrine 
for  worship,  embarked  from  Delft  Haven  for  England  in  the  year 
1620.  They  sailed  for  Southampton,  where  two  ships,  the  May¬ 
flower  and  the  Speedwell ,  were  made  ready  for  their  long  voyage. 

Soon  after  leaving  port  the  Speedwell  was  declared  unseaworthy, 
and  the  two  ships  put  back  into  the  port  of  Plymouth.  Here  the 
company  was  divided,  and  those  most 
needful  to  the  colony  put  on  board  the 
Mayflower ,  which  now  set  out  alone.  In 
this  way  many  who  had  wished  to  go 
were  left  behind,  because  one  ship  was 
not  large  enough  to  take  all.  There 
were  102  souls  on  the  Mayflower  —  men, 
women,  and  children,  —  when  she  left 


England. 


Mayflower. 


For  more  than  two  months  they  were  tossed  on  the  ocean  without 
sight  of  land.  For  nearly  a  month  after  they  came  in  sight  of 
land,  they  coasted  up  and  down  seeking  an  inviting  looking  spot  to 
plant  their  town  in  the  wilderness.  At  length  on  the  22d  of 
December,  1620,  at  the  head  of  a  little  harbor  which  runs  up  into 
the  land  from  Cape  Cod  Bay,  the  Pilgrims  left  their  ship  to  take 


96 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


possession  of  their  new  home.  The  shore  was  rocky  and  desolate. 
They  saw  no  signs  of  any  inhabitant.  No  refreshing  verdure,  nor 
the  song  of  birds  welcomed  them.  The  ground  was  frozen,  and  the 
streams  locked  with  ice.  Kneeling  on  the  rock  on  which  they  had 
first  set  foot,  they  named  it  Plymouth  Rock,  praising  God  mean¬ 
while  for  their  safe  deliverance  from  the  perils  of  the  sea. 

Then  they  went  sturdily  to  work.  There  were  no  merry-hearted, 
careless,  idle,  improvident  members  in  this  colony,  like  those  who 
had  troubled  John  Smith  in  Virginia.  These  men  were  all  terribly 
in  earnest.  They  had  known  misfortune.  They  had  been  driven 
from  their  own  country  years  before  by  oppression.  They  had 
known  home-sickness  and  disappointment,  and  felt  pangs  as  bitter 
as  cold  and  frost  could  give.  They  cared  little  whether  they  lived 
or  died,  if  they  perished  in  their  work  of  building  up  their  church, 
and  made  a  place  for  those  who  were  to  come  after  them. 

Well,  they  went  to  work  to  build  their  houses  so  that  they  might 
get  under  shelter  and  keep  from  freezing.  They  divided  the  whole 
party  into  nineteen  families,  and  each  family  must  build  his  own 
house,  in  order  that  one  might  suffer  no  more  than  another. 

in  the  still  winter  days,  as,  to  the 
sound  of  nothing  gayer  than  a 
psalm  tune,  they  kept  at  their 
work.  I  can  fancy  the  roaring 
of  the  great  fires  which  they 
built  at  night,  of  great  piles  of 
green  brush- wood,  to  keep  them 
warm,  and  frighten  away  the 
wolves,  whose  howling  could  be 
heard  when  darkness  fell.  And 
their  fear  of  wolves  was  minsded 

o 

with  the  dread  of  more  fearful 
animals  ;  for  in  their  ignorance 
of  this  new  country  they  did  not 
know  but  lions  and  tigers  might 
lurk  in  the  deep  coverts  of  the 
forests  around  them. 

When  they  landed  the  shores  were  deserted,  but  not  long  after¬ 
wards  an  Indian  came  towards  them,  exclaiming  in  their  own  tongue, 
“  Welcome,  Englishmen  !  Welcome  Englishmen  !  ” 

He  had  learned  a  few  English  words  from  the  boats  which  had 


I  can  fancy  their  axes  ringing 


Pilgrim  Costumes. 


Peaceful  Overtures  from  Indians 


EMIGRATION  OF  PILGRIMS. 


99 


visited  the  coast  fishing  for  cod,  and  was  very  friendly  to  the  white 
men.  This  Indian  told  them  of  Massasoit,  the  great  chieftain  of  the 
Waumpanoags,  who  was  in  their  neighborhood  with  sixty  of  his  war¬ 
riors,  all  dressed  in  their  best  array  of  paint  and  feathers,  secretly 
observing  the  motions  of  the  colony. 

John  Carver  had  before  this  been  made  governor,  and  in  the 
name  of  the  English  he  sent  for  Massasoit  to  come  and  make  a 
peace  with  him.  Massasoit  came  readily  in  answer  to  the  invita¬ 
tion,  and  the  two  chiefs  smoked  a  pipe  together  and  made  a  treaty 
which  Massasoit  kept  all  his  life  long. 

The  Indians  told  the  English  that  all  this  shore  where  they  had 
landed  had  been  visited  by  a  great  sickness,  from 
which  nearly  all  the  natives  had  died.  This  accounted 
for  the  deserted  country  they  had  found,  and  the  Pil¬ 
grims  believed  they  saw  the  hand  of  God  clearing 
a  way  for  them  in  the  wilderness. 

During  this  winter  all  the  firmness  and  endurance 
of  the  colony  were  called  into  action.  Governor 
Carver  showed  much  wisdom  in  his  early  dealings  with  the  Indians, 
but  when  the  colony  was  three  months  old,  he  died.  Brave  Will¬ 
iam  Bradford  was  made  governor  in  his  stead.  Shortly  after 
Carver’s  death  they  began  to  fear  trouble  with  the  Narragansett 
Indians,  who  were  enemies  of  the  friendly  Massasoit.  One  chief 
sent  a  snake  skin  stuffed  with  ar¬ 
rows  to  Governor  Bradford,  to  show 
him  he  was  his  enemy  ;  but  un¬ 
daunted  Bradford  sent  back  the 
skin  stuffed  full  to  the  jaws  with 
gunpowder.  After  this  answer  the 
Indians  do  not  seem  to  have  cared 
to  meddle  with  the  plucky  gov¬ 
ernor. 

Miles  Standish  was  another  Pu¬ 
ritan  of  indomitable  pluck.  He 
had  been  in  the  wars  in  Europe, 
and  was  the  soldier  of  the  colony. 

Where  there  was  any  danger  he 
went  straight  to  the  front.  He 
had  brought  over  with  him  a  little 
wife  named  Rose.  I  fancy  her  a 


Sfandd 


Carver's  Chair. 


Signatures  of  Pilgrims. 


in  1622  another  colony  sent  out  by  the  Plymouth  Company 
came  to  Wessagusset,  which  is  now  called  Weymouth,  and  settled 
there.  These  were  not  Puritans,  however.  They  were  nearly  all  of 


100  STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 

rose-bud  sort  of  woman,  too  tender  for  bleak  winds  and  rough 
rocks,  and  they  were  obliged  to  lay  her  away  in  a  snow  covered  grave 
very  soon  after  coming  to  Plymouth.  One  after  another  they 
died.  When  spring  set  in  after  that  first  winter,  only  half  their 
number  was  living. 

These  are  hard  days  to  read  about.  Yet  in  spite  of  all  obstacles 
they  prospered.  In  this  next  year  another  ship  came  bringing 
others  to  join  them.  And  in  less  than  a  year  from  the  time  they 
landed,  they  had  sent  home  to  the  Plymouth  Company,  in  part  pay¬ 
ment  of  lands,  “  500  pounds  worth  of  furs  and  clapboards.” 


Leyden  Street,  Plymouth,  Massachusetts,  in  1874. 


EMIGRATION  OF  PILGRIMS. 


101 


tlie  English  Church ;  and  the  Pilgrims,  who  had  run  away  from  this 
church,  did  not  view  with  very  cordial  eyes  the  sight  of  a  colony 
of  this  kind  growing  up  so  near  them. 

In  1628,  when  this  Plymouth  Colony  were  grown  hardy  and  well- 
rooted,  a  large  emigration  set  in  from  England  :  for  the  Puritans 
there  were  every  day  growing  more  and  more  restless  under  perse¬ 
cution.  Men  of  education  and  men  of  fortune  —  the  kind  of  men 
usually  averse  to  emigrating  —  were  ready  to  leave  England  for  a 
land  where  they  would  not  be  oppressed  for  their  opinion’s  sake. 
Democratic  ideas,  the  sort  of  ideas  which  grow  into  the  making  of 


Signatures  of  Massachusetts  Bay  Colonists 


a  republic,  had  crept  into  the  brains  of  some  of  these  men,  and 
made  them  eager  to  form  a  church  and  community  on  their  own 
plan  of  government.  A  party  of  these  Puritans,  living  principally 
in  Lincolnshire  and  Dorsetshire  in  England,  bought  a  tract  of 
land  of  the  Plymouth  Company,  and  began  making  their  arrange¬ 
ments  to  settle  there.  The  first  of  these,  led  by  John  Endicott, 
came  to  Massachusetts,  and  settled  in  Salem.  During  the  year 
1630,  seventeen  ships  with  1,500  men  came  to  the  new  colony. 


102 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


They  founded  the  towns  of  Boston,  Watertown,  Charlestown,  Lynn, 
and  Dorchester.  The  first  colony  still  kept  the  name  of  Plymouth, 
and  had  its  separate  governor.  All  the  last  named  towns,  including 
Salem,  were  united  under  the  name  of  the  “  Massachusetts  Bay  Col¬ 
ony and  their  first  governor  was  Mr.  John  Winthrop,  a  very  noble 
name  in  the  annals  of  the  Puritans. 


About  this  time  a  good  minister,  named  John  Eliot,  came  to 
America,  and  devoted  his  life  to  the  teaching  of  the  savages.  He 
is  known  as  the  “  Apostle  of  the  Indians.”  He  worked  among  the 
savages  in  Massachusetts  many  years,  learned  their  language,  sat  at 
their  camp-fires,  and  slept  in  their  lodges.  He  taught  the  men  to 
till  the  ground  with  better  tools  than  they  had  before  known  how  to 
use.  He  taught  the  Indian  women  to  spin,  and  the  whirr  of  the 
wheel  was  heard  in  many  a  savage  wigwam  where  Eliot  had  visited. 
He  founded  churches  and  schools,  and  taught  the  natives  to  read  and 
pray.  He  translated  for  them  a  Bible  into  their  own  language,  and 
this  book  was  printed  afterwards  on  the  first  printing-press  ever  set 
up  in  the  American  colonies. 

Such  were  some  of  the  labors  of  this  good  man,  who  deserves  to 
be  remembered  for  his  life  of  devotion  and  self-sacrifice. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

SETTLEMENT  OF  RHODE  ISLAND. 

Religious  Intolerance.  —  Roger  Williams’s  Banishment.  —  He  finds  Succor  from  friendly  In¬ 
dians. —  Pro%ridence  settled.  —  Religious  Freedom  in  Rhode  Island.  —  Williams  gets  a 
Charter  for  his  Colony. 

You  have  now  seen  something  of  the  men  who  settled  first  in 
New  England.  Life  seems  much  more  severe  and  uninviting  among 
the  Puritans  in  their  bleak  wintry  climate,  than  among  the  Cava¬ 
liers  in  Virginia.  And  in  many  respects  they  are  less  agreeable  to 
contemplate.  They  had  left  their  homes,  spent  their  fortunes,  and 
periled  their  lives,  that  they  might  have  liberty  of  conscience, 


SETTLEMENT  OF  RHODE  ISLAND. 


103 


that  is,  the  right  to  worship  God  as  they  pleased.  But  having  got 
this  right  for  themselves  they  did  not  mean  to  give  it  to  anybody 
else.  They  had  seen  how  powerful  a  thing  for  its  people  was  an 
established  church,  and  how  dangerous  it  was  to  any  religious  society 
to  permit  any  difference  of  opinion  among  its  people ;  and  they  kept 
strict  watch  over  all  their  church-members  to  see  that  no  one  dis¬ 
puted  any  of  their  rules  or  dogmas. 

If  they  heard  of  a  man  who  said  anything  against  their  church, 
they  brought  him  before  the  council  and  admonished  him  not  to  do 
so  again.  If  he  did  it  a  second  time,  they  banished  him  from  the 
colony. 

Once  in  the  dead  of  winter  they  banished  two  men,  who  were 
accused  of  having  written  home  to  England  something  unfavorable 
to  their  religious  autocracy.  Governor  Winthrop  of  the  Massachu¬ 
setts  Bay  Colony  did  not  send  them  away  from  the  settlement  until 
the  weather  grew  warmer,  because  he  was  more  humane  than  some 
of  the  others,  and  said  he  did  not  like  to  be  the  cause  of  their 
death.  On  this  they  reproved  Governor  Winthrop  for  being  “over¬ 
tender  in  his  administration  of  the  law,”  and  the  governor  peni¬ 
tently  owned  his  error  and  said  he  would  not  do  so  again. 

As  they  were  always  talking  about  religious  matters  it  is  not 
strange  that  little  differences  were  constantly  springing  up  among 
them.  One  woman  who  called  together  a  few  others  at  her  house, 
and  claimed  that  every  one  had  a  right  to  interpret  the  Scriptures 
for  himself,  was  accounted  very  wicked.  Her  name  was  Anne 
Hutchinson,  and  as  she  was  a  very  clear-headed  person  and  a  power¬ 
ful  reasoner,  and  made  a  good  deal  of  trouble,  she  was  banished, 
with  all  her  family. 

Another  woman  who  did  not  make  quite  as  much  disturbance  as 
Mrs.  Hutchinson,  but  yet  held  some  opinions  of  her  own,  was  pub¬ 
licly  whipped  at  a  whipping-post.  She  bore  the  whipping  like  a 
Spartan  boy  :  but  when  they  put  a  cleft  stick  on  her  tongue  to  con¬ 
vince  her  she  had  better  not  talk  any  more,  the  poor  young  woman 
burst  into  tears  at  the  additional  disgrace. 

Indeed,  so  frequent  were  these  whippings  and  persecutings  among 
the  Puritans,  that  the  friends  of  the  colony  in  England  began  to 
remonstrate,  and  beg  them  to  be  a  little  more  generous.  It  is  nat¬ 
ural  to  suppose  that  among  so  many  who  came  over  here,  in  these 
early  days,  to  get  liberty  to  worship  as  they  pleased,  there  were 
many  men  who  would  not  relish  the  strict  watch  which  the  Puri- 


104 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


tans  kept  over  everybody’s  opinions,  and  would  desire  to  have  the 
freedom  they  had  crossed  the  seas  for. 

One  such  man  there  was  named  Roger  Williams,  who  had  come 

to  Salem  as  minister.  It 
was  very  soon  found  out 
that  this  new  minister, 
who  was  a  learned  and 
very  promising  young 
man,  did  not  altogether 
agree  with  the  leaders  of 
the  Massachusetts  Church 
in  some  points  of  religion. 
The  difference  between 
them  was  so  small,  that 
I  don’t  believe  you  or  I 
could  understand  it  very 
well  if  we  tried.  I  do  not 
think  Roger  Williams 
was  any  less  strict  in  his 
views  than  they  were,  ex¬ 
cept  he  did  not  believe  in 
so  much  tyranny  over 
everybody’s  conscience. 

The  Massachusetts  men  tried  hard  to  bring  him  to  terms.  Gov¬ 
ernor  John  Winthrop,  who  seems  to  have  been  a  gentler  sort  of 
Puritan,  tried  his  best,  and  entreaty  and  persuasion  were  used  with 
him.  But  Roger  Williams  stood  his  ground.  He  was  going  to 
declare  what  he  believed  true.  Liberty  of  conscience  was  what  he 
came  to  America  for. 

At  length  they  concluded  to  take  Williams  and  send  him  back  to 
England  to  be  rid  of  him.  They  had  tried  that  remedy  before  with 
some  Episcopalians  who  had  gone  quietly  to  worshiping  in  their 
own  fashion.  Roger  Williams  heard  of  their  plan  just  before  they 
were  ready  to  execute  it,  and  when  they  got  to  his  house  they  found 
it  empty. 

It  was  midwinter,  one  of  those  hard  New  England  winters,  when 
Roger  Williams  was  thus  driven  from  his  home  and  family.  For 
three  months  he  was  without  home,  almost  without  shelter,  hiding 
from  his  persecutors.  To  the  goodness  of  some  friendly  Indians  he 
owed  his  life. 


SETTLEMENT  OF  RHODE  ISLAND. 


105 


Of  these  Indians  he  was  able  to  purchase  some  lands,  and,  remov¬ 
ing  his  family,  he  soon  drew  many  of  his  church  in  Salem  after  him, 
who  had  sympathized  with  his  opinions.  Here  he  built  a  town 
called  Providence,  which  was  the  first  town  built  in  the  State  of 
Rhode  Island. 

In  his  colony  Roger  Williams  declared  that  “  all  dwelling  therein 
should  worship  God  as  they  chose.  1  here  Catholic  and  Protestant, 
Baptists,  Episcopalians,  and  Puritans,  should  say  their  prayers  in 
their  own  fashion.  In  this  colony  rose  the  star  of  pure  religious 
freedom.  All  honor  to  Roger  Williams !  All  honor  to  that  little 
settlement  which  shone  for  years  a  bright  spot  in  the  midst  of  per¬ 
secution  and  bigotry. 

Roger  Williams  did  not  forget  to  be  grateful  to  the  Indians  who 
had  been  good  to  him.  He  was  a  rare  scholar,  knew  many  lan¬ 
guages,  and  now  he  set  about  learning  the  Indian  tongue.  He  was 
famous  for  his  labors  among  them,  and  they  loved  him  scarcely  less 
-  than  the  good  Eliot  was  loved.  He  was  very  dear  to  his  colony  too, 
and  few  men  seem  to  have  been  more  honored  and  loved.  He 
had  founded  his  little  colony  in  1636,  and  in  1642,  when  it  had  been 
planted  six  years,  and  had  grown  and  flourished,  he  went  to  Eng¬ 
land  to  get  a  charter  from  the  king.  Several  other  towns  had,  in 
the  mean  time,  been  built  in  Rhode  Island,  by  different  parties  of 
men  who  had  been  driven  out  of  the  Massachusetts  colonies  for 
their  opinions. 

Williams  remained  in  England  nearly  two  years,  and  got  a  very 
liberal  charter  from  King  Charles  I.,  which  left  the  little  colony 
almost  entire  freedom  in  its  laws  and  the  choice  of  its  rulers. 

When  he  returned  to  Providence  and  was  coming  over  the  river 
to  his  home,  he  found  the  whole  colony  had 
come  out  in  boats  to  meet  him.  The  old 
and  young  men,  the  women  and  children, 
were  all  embarked,  and  welcomed  him  with 
every  demonstration  of  joy.  Williams  was 
greatly  affected  and  touched  by  this  wel¬ 
come,  and  felt  that  he  never  knew  before 
how  much  his  people  loved  him. 


Early  New  England  House. 


106 


STOIiY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

WEST  COUNTRY  PEOPLE  SETTLE  CONNECTICUT. 

Settlers  in  Dorchester.  —  March  to  Connecticut  River.  — New  Haven  founded.  —  Traders  and 

Fishermen  settle  New  Hampshire  and  Maine.  — Troubles  in  England.  — The  King  beheaded. 

—  Story  of  Oliver  Cromwell.  —  Maine  a  Province  of  Massachusetts. 

You  have  now  seen  the  beginning  of  three  colonies  in  New  Eng¬ 
land  :  the  Plymouth,  Massachusetts  Bay,  and  Rhode  Island  colonies. 
The  next  in  the  list  of  settlements  is  that  of  the  colonies  in  Con¬ 
necticut. 

The  people  who  had  settled  the  town  of  Dorchester,  near  Boston, 
in  the  great  immigration  of  1630,  were  generally  known  as  the  “  west 
country  people.”  They  were  so  called  because  they  were  nearly  all 
from  Dorsetshire,  a  county  in  England  lying  west  of  Lincolnshire, 
the  county  from  which  the  larger  part  of  Massachusetts  Bay  Colony 
had  come.  These  Dorsetshire  people  had  been  accustomed  to  a 
much  more  fertile  and  pleasant  country  than  that  in  which  they 
were  settled.  They  had  brought  over  a  large  number  of  English 
cattle,  and  their  cows  and  oxen  had  been  used  to  better  feeding- 
grounds  than  the  salt  marshes  with  their  coarse  grass,  which  sur¬ 
rounded  their  settlement.  But  they  heard  very  soon  of  green  pas¬ 
ture  lands  and  smiling  meadows  in  the  valley  of  the  Connecticut 
River  which  flowed  southwest  of  them.  It  was  also  said  that  here 
plenty  of  rich  furs  could  be  had  very  cheap  of  the  Indians,  who  had 
not  yet  learned  to  drive  sharp  bargains  with  the  white  man.  Then 
it  was  whispered  that  the  Dutch  traders  had  already  begun  to  come 
up  this  river,  and  would  claim  these  beautiful  lands  if  the  English 
did  not  make  haste  to  get  them. 

Some  Englishmen  from  Plymouth  had  already  visited  the  banks 
of  the  Connecticut ;  and  one  of  the  Indian  sachems  had  sent  to  the 
governors  of  the  two  Massachusetts  colonies,  inviting  them  to  send 
their  people  to  build  a  town  there. 

In  1635  a  party  of  these  Dorchester  men  got  permission  of  the 
magistrates  to  remove  to  Connecticut.  In  the  spring  of  this  year, 
nearly  half  the  males  of  Dorchester  went  down  where  the  town  of 
Windsor  was  afterwards  built,  and  began  felling  trees  and  cutting 
logs  for  their  houses.  They  found  some  Dutch  encamped  on  the 
river  and  drove  them  away  ;  they  found  also  a  party  of  twenty  set¬ 
tlers  from  Plymouth  on  the  site  of  Windsor,  and  succeeded,  by  fair 


WEST  COUNTRY  PEOPLE  SETTLE  CONNECTICUT.  107 

means  or  foul,  in  getting  them  to  surrender  the  ground.  Then  they 
set  to  work  and  made  a  clearing. 

They  worked  here  all  summer,  and  early  in  the  fall  went  back 
to  Dorchester  for  their  families.  They  loaded  a  ship  there  with 
household  goods  and  with  stores  of  provisions  for  winter,  and  sent  it 
around  Cape  Cod  to  come  through  Long  Island  Sound,  and  up  the 
Connecticut  River  to  meet  them.  Then  with  the  women  and  children 
they  started  to  return  on  foot.  The  delicate  women,  and  the  little 
children,  were  put  on  horseback,  and  the  sturdy  men  and  women 
marched  along  on  foot  driving  their  cattle  before  them. 

It  was  late  in  October  when  they  started,  and  this  was  slow 
traveling.  The  winter  set  in  early,  and  the  emigrants  were  fam¬ 
ished  with  cold.  Many  died  on  the  route,  and  the  cattle,  unable  to 
find  fodder  in  the  thick  wood,  died  also,  or  wandered  away  and  were 
lost. 

At  last  they  took  little  heed  of  their  beasts,  except  those  which 
they  rode,  and  made  the  best  speed  they  could  to  their  clearing. 
When  they  got  there  they  found  the  river  fast  bound  in  ice,  and  the 
ship  with  provisions  not  yet  arrived.  A  party  of  seventy  men, 
women,  and  children,  started  down  the  river  to  meet  it,  eating 
acorns  and  nuts  to  keep  themselves  from  starvation.  Fortunately 
the  river  thawed  before  winter  fairly  set  in,  and  they  found  the 
ship  making  its  way  up  to  them. 

They  went  back,  and  building  a  fort  to  protect  themselves  from 
the  Indians,  named  the  town  Windsor.  And  thus  began  the  first 
settlement  in  Connecticut. 

Three  years  after,  another  town  was  built  at  the  mouth  of  the 
river  and  called  the  “  New  Haven  Colony.”  This  was  a  separate 
government  till  1662,  when  it  was  joined  to  Connecticut  and  be¬ 
came  a  part  of  it. 

As  you  see,  all  these  last  three  colonies  were  off-shoots  from  the 
Puritan  emigration.  But  James  I.,  who  had  never  favored  the 
Puritans  and  would  promise  to  show  them  no  favor,  gave  away  a 
large  part  of  New  England  to  Fernando  Gorges  in  the  year  1620, 
the  very  year  Plymouth  was  settled.  This  tract  stretched  over 
Maine  and  New  Hampshire,  and  included  part  of  Massachusetts. 

Fernando  Gorges  was  a  friend  of  the  king  and  a  member  of  the 
Church  of  England.  He  had  for  years  been  interested  in  Amer¬ 
ica,  was  acquainted  with  Captain  John  Smith,  and  was  one  of 
the  company  who  sent  this  brave  adventurer  to  survey  the  coast  of 


108 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


New  England.  Maine  was  well  known  as  a  great  fishing  coast,  and 
was  famous  also  for  the  tall  pines  used  for  masts  to  English  ships. 
After  Gorges  became  proprietor  of  this  tract  of  land,  he  was  de¬ 
sirous  to  plant  colonies  there. 

The  French,  who  claimed  all  Canada  and  the  St.  Lawrence  region 
under  the  name  of  New  France ,  had  settled  in  Nova  Scotia  and  en¬ 
croached  upon  the  borders  of  Maine.  Indeed  it  was  a  long  time  before 
the  boundaries  of  this  State  were  settled,  as  you  will  learn  hereafter. 

Gorges  and  another  gentleman,  named  John  Mason,  shared  this 
large  tract  between  them.  The  former  took  Maine,  and  Mason 
took  New  Hampshire.  In  1623  the  town  of  Dover  was  settled  by  a 
party  of  traders,  who  had  dealings  with  the  fishermen  on  the  coast ; 
and  shortly  after,  the  town  of  Portsmouth  was  built  on  the  sea-coast. 
This  was  the  beginning  of  the  State  of  New  Hampshire. 

About  the  same  time  Gorges  sent  colonies  to  the  towns  of  Saco 
and  of  York  in  Maine,  and  established  a  government  there  of  which 
he  was  the  proprietor  in  chief. 

Shortly  after  Gorges  had  received  all  this  land  from  James  I.,  that 
king  died,  and  his  eldest  son  came  to  reign  in  his  stead.  This  son, 
who  was  known  as  Charles  I.,  was  certainly  not  much  worse  than 
his  father,  and  perhaps  intended  to  be  a  better  king.  But  he  dis¬ 
pleased  the  people  very  much.  The  Puritans  in  England  had  now 
grown  to  be  a  strong  party,  and  had  powerful  leaders  in  the  state. 
Oppression  had  brought  out  all  their  strength,  while  the  Cavaliers, 
who  had  held  power  so  long,  were  overbearing  and  oppressive  and 
regardless  of  the  rights  of  the  people,  who  had  come  to  sympathize 
with  the  Puritans  and  to  look  upon  the  court  party  as  very  corrupt 
and  tyrannical. 

Oliver  Cromwell,  a  very  able  and  ambitious  man,  was  one  of 
their  leaders.  He  headed  the  Puritans  in  a  war  against  the  Cava¬ 
liers,  and  finally  got  King  Charles  into  his  power,  and  tried  him  be¬ 
fore  a  court  of  judges  on  the  charge  of  treason  against  the  liberties 
of  the  people  of  England.  This  court  condemned  him  to  death,  and 
his  head  was  cut  off  by  the  headsman  in  his  own  city  of  London. 

Then  Oliver  Cromwell  was  made  Lord  Protector  of  England  for 
his  whole  life,  and  used  that  office  very  much  as  if  he  were  king. 
There  is  a  story  told  of  Cromwell,  that  when  a  student  in  college  he 
had  once  played  in  some  drama  with  his  comrades.  In  this  play  he 
finds  a  royal  purple  mantle  and  a  golden  crown,  and  puts  it  on  his 
head.  The  story  says  that  Cromwell  played  the  part  with  great 


THE  DUTCH  IN  AMERICA. 


109 


effect,  and  that  his  ambition  was  so  stirred  by  it  that  he  never  rested 
all  his  life  till  he  conld  wear  the  royal  honors  of  a  king.  I  do  not 
know  if  the  story  is  true,  but  it  is  certain  that  a  very  slight  thing 
sometimes  shapes  the  life  of  a  man  from  his  boyhood. 

Ambitious  as  Cromwell  was  for  power,  he  made  much  better  and 
wiser  laws  for  the  English  people  than  King  Charles  or  his  pig¬ 
headed  old  father. 

Of  course  the  Massachusetts  colonies,  settled  by  Puritans,  had  a 
better  time  when  Cromwell  was  in  power,  because 
they  sympathized  with  his  government  and  had 
always  been  of  his  party.  They  now  claimed  a 
right  over  the  provinces  of  Maine  and  New  Hamp¬ 
shire.  Gorges  had  been  one  of  the  party  of 
loyalists  who  remained  faithful  to  the  king,  and 
his  rights  were  not  respected  by  the  Puritans. 

He  seems,  however,  to  have  been  a  sincere,  honest  man,  and  did  a 
good  work  for  America  in  his  efforts  to  settle  the  country. 

From  this  time  Maine  became  a  province  of  Massachusetts  Bay 
Colony,  and  remained  so  for  many  years,  until  she  became  one  of  the 
United  States,  and  Fernando  Gorges  never  regained  his  right  as 
lord  proprietor. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

THE  DUTCH  IN  AMERICA. 

The  Country  of  Holland. — How  they  keep  off  the  Sea. — Dutch  Traders.  — Henry  Hudson 
sent  to  America.  —  Hudson  River  discovered.  —  Fur-trade.  —  New  York  City  begun.  — 
Indians  afraid  of  Windmills.  —  Warfare  with  Indians.  — Kieft’s  Massacre. 

By  looking  closely  on  the  map  you  will  find  on  the  sea-coast  of 
Europe,  hidden  away  behind  the  islands  of  Great  Britain,  a  little 
country  called  Holland.  It  is  not  of  very  great  importance  now,  as 
a  European  power,  but  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries, 
especially  at  the  time  this  country  was  settled,  it  was  one  of  the 
briskest,  busiest,  most  thriving  places  in  the  world.  The  people  of 
this  country  are  called  Dutch,  and  they  are  an  interesting  people  to 
read  about. 

Holland  is  the  queerest  little  country  in  Europe.  It  is  as  flat  as 
a  pancake,  lying  so  much  lower  than  the  ocean  that  the  mighty 
waves  are  constantly  trying  to  encroach  upon  it,  and  the  whole  face 


110  STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 

of  the  land  would  be  drowned  out  of  sight,  and  all  the  houses  and 
people  swept  away,  if  its  undaunted  inhabitants  had  not  built  great 
walls  of  mud  and  stone,  and  sticks  and  straw,  as  the  cunning  beaver 

builds  his  dam,  to  keep 
out  their  uncomfortable 
neighbor,  the  ocean. 
Those  great  beaver- 
dams,  which  they  call 
</i/ces ,  are  all  along  the 
sea-coast  for  miles  and 
miles,  and  are  planted 
thickly  with  willows, 
whose  deep-striking 
roots  help  to  strengthen 
the  works  and  make 
the  country  look  as  if  it 
were  set  behind  a  green 
hedge.  All  over  the 
land  are  windmills, 
which  keep  up  a  perpet¬ 
ual  whirring  and  whiz¬ 
zing  of  their  sails  like 
so  many  great  birds. 

This  persevering  little  Holland  was  far  ahead  of  England  in  gen¬ 
eral  comfort  at  the  time  of  which  we  are  reading.  Her  people  were 
a  nation  of  thriving  merchants.  Although  she  had  hardly  a  stick 
of  timber  to  cut  in  her  length  and  breadth,  she  built  more  ships  and 
better  ones  than  England.  She  was  also  the  market-garden  of  the 
latter  country,  and  supplied  the  English  with  the  turnips,  carrots, 
green  peas,  and  cabbages,  which  they  were  not  yet  good  enough 
gardeners  to  raise  at  home. 

A  large  company  of  merchants,  called  the  Dutch  East  India  Com¬ 
pany ,  brought  all  the  luxuries  of  the  East  to  the  Dutch  cities,  from 
whence  they  were  sold  all  over  Europe.  This  trade  brought  a 
greater  degree  of  comfort  into  Holland  than  was  then  common  in 
England.  Many  a  merchant’s  house  had  stores  of  linen  and  stuffs 
of  silk,  hangings  of  tapestry,  and  even  rugs  for  the  floor,  such  as 
were  only  seen  among  the  English  nobles.  They  manufactured  brick 
and  glass,  and  many  other  useful  materials,  long  before  these  arts 
were  practiced  in  their  neighbor  country. 


THE  DUTCH  IN  AMERICA  111 

These  Dutch,  always  on  the  look-out  for  a  good  opportunity  to 
turn  an  honest  penny,  did  not  forget  America. 

They  began  early  to  fix  their  eyes  on  this  new 
country,  and  to  examine  into  the  facilities  it 
offered  for  trade. 

In  1609  an  English  sea-captain  offered  his 
services  to  the  Dutch  East  India  Company  to 
go  on  voyages  to  America,  if  they  chose  to  fit 
him  out.  This  was  Henry  Hudson,  a  man 
who  had  already  been  on  two  voyages  for  the  Henry  Hudson. 

Plymouth  Company  in  England,  to  see  if  he  could  discover  a  pas¬ 
sage  west  to  Asia.  That  was  his  hobby,  as  it  had  been  the  hobby 
of  nearly  all  the  great  navigators  since  Columbus.  So,  in  1609, 
Henry  Hudson  sailed  for  the  Dutch  East  India  Company  in  a  little 
vessel  called  the  Rolf -moon.  It  is  said  that  Captain  John  Smith, 
who  was  a  friend  of  Hudson,  had  told  him  that  he  had  heard  there 
was  an  open  channel  to  the  South  Sea  somewhere  between  New 
England  and  the  coast  of  Virginia. 

Hudson  sailed  for  New  England,  and  began  to  explore  the  coast 
for  this  far-famed  passage.  He  anchored  first  on  the  coast  of  Maine, 
which  was  then  a  great  wilderness  of  tall  pine-trees.  Then  he  sailed 
all  along  the  coast  of  New  England,  which  looked  very  lonely  and 
bleak,  for  this  was  thirteen  years  before  the  Pilgrims  landed  on  Ply¬ 
mouth  Rock,  and  there  was  not  one  white  man  on  all  its  shores. 
From  thence  Hudson  sailed  southward  to  New  York  Bay,  and  then 
up  into  the  harbor,  and  at  length  into  the  mouth  of  the  beautiful 
river  which  now  bears  his  name.  This  river  he  concluded  must  be 
the  object  of  his  search,  the  channel  of  which  Smith  had  told  him. 

This  seems  very  absurd  to  us  now,  when  every  little  place  on  our 
whole  globe  is  laid  down  upon  the  maps.  But  Hudson  did  not  have 
such  maps.  He  was  one  of  the  men  who,  by  their  discoveries,  have 
helped  us  to  make  them.  Two  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  even 
the  great  sea-captains  did  not  know  so  much  about  geography  as  a 
clever  school-boy  of  to-day. 

Well,  he  sailed  up  and  up  the  pleasant  river,  in  the  pleasant 
month  of  September.  All  along  the  banks,  where  now  are  fine 
country  houses  and  pretty  villages,  were  Indian  wigwams  and  fields 
yellow  with  Indian  corn.  And  the  savages,  hooting  and  yelling 
trooped  to  the  shores  to  see  the  strange  canoe  of  the  pale-faces  sail  by. 

Pretty  soon  the  Indians  began  to  venture  to  the  ship,  bringing 


112 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


corn  and  other  vegetables  in  their  boats.  Hudson  gave  them,  in  re¬ 
turn,  axes,  and  knives,  and  shoes,  and  cotton  cloth.  Of  course, 
these  were  all  curiosities  to  the  wild  people  of  the  forest,  and  they 
hardly  knew  what  to  do  with  them.  The  next  time  they  came  to 
the  ship,  the  chiefs  had  strings  of  shoes  around  their  necks,  and  axes 
and  knives  strung  about  their  girdles  as  ornaments,  just  as  they 
wore  chains  of  beads  and  wampum. 

At  first  the  Indians  were  friendly  ;  but  no  matter  how  pleasantly 
the  Englishmen  and  the  savages  began  each  other’s  acquaintance, 
they  were  pretty  sure  to  end  in  fighting.  So  it  happened  in  this 
case,  and  in  a  skirmish  they  killed  one  of  Hudson’s  oldest  sailors. 
The  others  buried  him  on  the  shore,  and  left  him  there  close  by  the 
river  he  had  aided  to  discover,  where  its  gentle  waters  ebbed  and 
and  flowed  over  his  lonely  grave. 

When  Hudson  had  got  up  as  far  as  the  spot  where  the  city  of 
Albany  now  stands,  he  found  his  supposed  channel  had  grown  nar¬ 
rower  and  narrower,  until  here  he  was  stopped  altogether.  No 
longer  was  the  stream  deep  enough  to  sail  his  ship.  He  sent  boats 
on  farther ;  but  they  confirmed  his  growing  suspicion  that,  after  all, 
it  was  only  a  river  which  he  had  been  exploring.  So  back  he  sailed 
between  the  shores  crowned  with  oak -forests,  or  fringed  with  fields 
of  Indian  corn,  down  between  the  rocky  Palisades,  which  remain  to¬ 
day  unchanged  by  the  hand  of  Nature  or  of  man,  just  as  Hudson 
saw  them  so  long,  long  ago  —  out  into  the  Narrows,  and  back  across 
the  ocean  to  Holland. 

From  this  time  the  Dutch  claimed  all  the  country  about  the  Hud¬ 
son,  and  called  it  New  Netherlands,  after  one 
of  the  names  of  their  own  country. 

Hudson’s  other  voyages  were  made  up  in  the 
regions  of  Hudson  Bay  and  those  frozen  lands 
of  North  America.  There,  on  his  last  voyage, 
still  searching  for  the  western  passage,  his  crew 
mutinied,  set  him  adrift  with  seven  others  in  a 
The  Haif-moon.  little  boat,  and  left  him  to  starve.  So  the  brave 

sailor  and  those  who  were  with  him  were  never  heard  of  any  more. 

These  voyages  of  Hudson  and  others  in  which  the  Dutch  traders 
had  taken  part  had  given  them  an  inkling  of  the  valuable  furs  that 
could  be  bought  so  cheap  of  the  Indians  in  the  great  hunting 
grounds  of  America,  and  put  it  into  their  heads  to  establish  a  fur 
trade  on  the  western  continent  that  should  rival  their  trade  with 


THE  DUTCH  IN  AMERICA. 


m 


the  East  Indies.  They  therefore  bought  a  grant  from  the  govern¬ 
ment  of  Holland  of  the  land  it  claimed  through  Hudson's  dis¬ 
coveries,  and  formed  a  West  India  Company. 

The  company  knew  of  a  little  island  in  the  mouth  of  Hudson 
River  called  Manhattan  by  the  Indians.  They  decided  they  would 
make  this  island  a  trading  port  or  depot  for  the  fur  trade,  where 
their  ships  could  come  in,  after  an  excursion  for  fur,  and  also  where 
they  could  keep  up  a  trade  with  the  surrounding  Indians.  In  the 
country  about  Hudson  River  they  could  get  quantities  of  deer, 
otter,  and  beaver  skins.  The  beaver  skins  were  used  for  making 
hats,  and  you  often  see  men’s  gloves  nowadays  made  of  the  soft 
fur  of  the  otter.  Away  to  the  north  about  Hudson  Bay,  the  furs 
were  still  more  valuable.  They  got  there  the  skins  of  mink,  mar¬ 
ten,  ermine,  and  sable,  such  as  ladies’  furs  are  made  of  now. 

For  several  years  the  Dutch  carried  on  this  trade,  before  they 
began  to  build  a  colony.  They  had  a  few  log  huts  on  Manhattan 
Island  where  the  fur  dealers  and  trappers  lived,  but  there  was  no 
settlement  there  until  long  after  these  were  built. 

Holland  had  been  for  many  years  a  country  of  refuge  for  people 
who  had  been  persecuted  for  their  religion  in  their  own  land. 
From  Holland,  you  remember,  came  the  first  English  to  this  coun¬ 
try.  In  another  part  of  the  country  Avere  settled  many  French 
Protestants,  as  the  Huguenots  of  Avhom  I  have  told  you.  These 
French-Dutch  people  Avere  called  Walloons,  and  in  1623  a  party 
of  them,  thirty  families  in  all,  decided  to  come  to  NeAV  Netherlands. 

These  thirty  families  came  over  and  scattered  about  in  different 
places.  A  feAv  went  up  the  Hudson  and  began  the  city  of  Albany. 
Others  settled  in  Long  Island,  a  few  Avent  into  NeAV  Jersey,  and 
the  rest,  eight  families  in  all,  settled  on  the  island  of  Manhattan,  and 
began  Avhat  is  iioav  the  great  city  of  New  York. 

A  year  or  tAvo  later  the  Hollanders  began  to  send  out  more  men 
and  cattle,  and  materials  to  build  houses.  A  little  fort  was  built  on 
the  end  of  the  island,  and  the  town  Avas  named  New  Amsterdam , 
after  one  of  the  richest  cities  in  Holland. 

This  neAV  colony  soon  showed  the  same  spirit  which  had  made  the 
little  country  across  the  water  one  of  the  most  prosperous  in  Europe. 
As  they  Avere  ship-builders  at  home,  so  the  first  ship  built  in  the 
American  colonies  Avas  made  by  the  Dutch.  They  put  up  the  first 
saw-mill  ever  used  here.  This  was  driven  by  wind  power,  as  so 
many  of  their  mills  were  in  Holland.  Very  soon  after  they  came 


114 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


here,  these  windmills  began  to  dot  the  landscape  all  about  New 
York  with  their  whirring  sails. 

The  Indians  were  afraid  of  these  strange  monsters  by  means  of 
which  the  pale-faces  could  saw  their  boards  and  grind 
their  flour.  They  would  sit  hours  staring  at  one  as  it 
revolved,  with  mingled  awe  and  wonder.  Sometimes 
when  they  got  a  chance  they  would  burn  them  down, 
believing  them  to  be  the  work  of  evil  spirits  and  only  fit 
to  be  destroyed. 

When  the  Dutch  first  came  to  Manhattan  Island 
they  bought  it  of  the  natives,  and  made  with  them  a 
treaty  of  peace.  They  gave  twenty-four  dollars  in  wam¬ 
pum  for  the  whole  island  where  the  great  city  of  New 
York,  worth  millions  and  millions  of  dollars,  now  stands. 

For  many  years  they  lived  peaceably  with  the  savages,  who  kept 
the  treaty  very  faithfully.  But  about  1640,  several  acts  of  blood¬ 
shed  were  committed  by  the  Indians,  and  quickly  retaliated  by  the 
whites.  The  Dutch,  as  well  as  the  English,  used  the  law  of  “  blood 
for  blood”  in  dealing  with  the  savages,  and  in  most  cases  the  white 
men  were  quite  as  much  to  blame  as  the  poor  untaught  red  men. 
In  one  respect  the  former  were  the  most  guilty,  for  they  furnished 
the  whiskey  and  rum  which  made  the  Indians  ripe  for  deeds  of 
bloodshed.  Until  the  white  men  came  here  the  Indians  had  never 
known  the  use  of  intoxicating  liquor.  They  called  it  “  fire-water,” 
which  was  a  very  suitable  name  for  the  vile  stuff,  and  it  caused  them 
to  do  many  deeds  they  were  sorry  for  when  sober. 

For  two  or  three  years  the  ill-feeling  between  the  colony  and  the 
savages  was  kept  up,  till  in  the  year  1642,  when  William  Ivieft  was 
governor  of  the  colony,  a  general  slaughter  of  the  Indians  was  re¬ 
solved  upon.  Some  of  the  milder-tempered  in  the  colony,  among 
whom  was  David  de  Vries,  one  of  the  first  settlers  and  a  man  much 
beloved  by  the  savages,  tried  to  prevent  this  design.  But  Ivieft  was 
a  violent,  unreasonable  man,  and  would  not  give  up  his  cruel  purpose. 

One  winter’s  night  in  1643  they  crossed  over  to  the  Jersey 
shore,  where  an  Indian  encampment  was  set  up,  and  took  it  wholly 
by  surprise.  So  sudden  and  so  terrible  was  the  attack,  that  the 
savages  had  no  time  to  take  up  their  weapons,  and  did  not  know 
who  were  their  foes.  Many  of  them  thought  it  was  another  Indian 
tribe  with  whom  they  were  at  enmity.  Nearly  all  the  party,  men, 
women,  and  children,  were  killed.  Many  were  driven  into  the 


A  Dutchman. 
1660. 


THE  SWEDES  IN  NEW  JERSEY  AND  DELAWARE.  115 

river  and  drowned.  Never  was  there  a  more  pitiless  and  bloody 
slaughter. 

After  this,  a  terrible  warfare  raged  between  the  two  races.  Woe 
to  the  unfortunate  family  of  white  people  who  lived  too  far  from 
the  colony  to  receive  its  protection.  Many  whole  families  were  sur¬ 
prised  and  slain.  Sometimes  the  lonely  farm-house  would  be  en¬ 
tered  when  the  husband  and  father  was  away,  and  all  the  women 
and  children  would  be  murdered.  The  women  at  their  spinning- 
wheels  would  look  up  to  behold  a  huge  Indian  entering  silently  with 
his  tomahawk  upraised  to  cleave  their  skulls.  Babies  would  be  torn 
from  their  mother’s  arms  and  their  brains  dashed  out  before  her 
eyes.  Many  a  brave  woman  learned  to  lire  a  musket  and  defend 
her  home  against  Indians.  Long  had  the  colony  cause  to  regret 
the  cruel  attack  planned  by  Kieft  which  had  brought  on  this  war 
and  made  so  many  homes  desolate.  At  this  time  Mrs.  Anne  Hutch- 
inson,  who,  you  recollect,  had  been  driven  out  of  Massachusetts  by 
the  Puritans,  and  was  now  settled  on  Long  Island  by  the  Dutch 
settlers,  was  slain,  with  all  her  family. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

THE  SWEDES  IN  NEW  JERSEY  AND  DELAWARE. 

Peter  Minuit  and  his  Colony  of  Swedes.  —  They  buy  New  Jersey  for  an  Iron  Kettle.  —  New  Jer¬ 
sey  claimed  and  named  by  Three  Nations.  — A  New  King  in  England.  —  New  York  City  be¬ 
comes  an  English  Colony.  — New  Jersey  named  by  an  English  Nobleman. 

The  governor  of  the  first  colony  of  Dutch  who  came  to  settle  in 
New  Amsterdam,  was  Peter  Minuit.  He  quarreled  with  the  West 
India  Company  after  a  time,  and  in  order  to  revenge  himself  on 
them  went  to  Sweden  to  see  if  he  could  not  bring  a  colony  of  his 
own  from  thence  to  America.  Sweden  was  a  powerful  and  pros¬ 
perous  country,  and  was  naturally  anxious  to  get  a  part  of  the  New 
World,  which  was  being  so  generously  divided  among  its  people  by 
the  other  powers  of  Europe.  Queen  Christina  of  Sweden  was  only 
twelve  years  old,  but  the  kingdom  was  managed  for  her  by  very 
able  men.  They  favored  the  design  of  Peter  Minuit  and  fitted  him 
out  with  ships  and  men. 

They  went  to  the  mouth  of  the  Delaware  Bay,  and  sailing  up  the 
river,  built  a  fort,  called  ‘k  Christina  ”  after  their  queen.  It  was 


116  STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 

near  where  the  city  of  Wilmington,  Delaware,  is  built.  They  bought 
of  the  Indians  all  that  part  of  Delaware  and  New  Jersey  which  lies 
between  Delaware  Bay  and  Trenton  Falls,  and  named  it  New  Swe¬ 
den.  I  have  heard  they  gave  an  old  iron  kettle  for  all  this  land. 
We  should  consider  that  a  very  good  bargain  nowadays.  After 
this  land  was  purchased  the  Swedes  began  to  scatter  over  this  part 
of  New  Jersey  and  make  farms  and  build  houses. 

But  they  did  not  long  remain  in  undisputed  possession.  All 
this  part  of  the  country  had  been  granted  to  Sir  Edmund  Ploy- 
den  by  King  Charles  I.,  and  in  1634,  four  years  before  the  Swedes 
came,  a  number  of  English  gentlemen  had  begun  laying  out  plan¬ 
tations  in  the  more 
northern  part  of  New 
Jersey,  on  the  River 
Passaic.  The  Dutch 
also  claimed  this  land, 
and  some  of  the  Wal¬ 
loons  had  settled  here 
earlier  than  the  Eng¬ 
lish  .  So  you  see  there 
were  three  nations 
claiming  this  one  lit¬ 
tle  State.  It  had  three 
names,  also.  The 
Swedes  called  it  New 
Sweden,  the  Dutch, 
New  Netherlands,  and 
the  English,  New  Al¬ 
bion. 

After  the  Swedes 
were  fairly  estab¬ 
lished  there,  a  part  of 
the  New  Haven  col¬ 
ony  came  down  to 
New  Jersey  and  be¬ 
gan  to  build  very  near  them.  But  the  Dutch,  who  were  more 
jealous  of  the  New  Haven  people  than  any  others,  immediately 
came  down  with  ships  to  resist  their  encroachments.  The  English 
had  driven  away  the  Dutch  from  the  Connecticut  River,  and  the 
colony  at  New  HJven  were  settled  on  one  of  the  very  points  which 


THE  SWEDES  IN  NEW  JERSEY  AND  DELAWARE. 


117 


the  Dutch  had  wished  to  keep  for  their  own.  So  the  Dutch  were 
very  glad  to  unite  with  the  Swedes,  and  help  them  drive  the  Eng¬ 
lish  out  of  New  Sweden.  For  some  time  now  the  Swedes  were  left 
alone,  but  in  1651  a  new  governor  of  the  Dutch  colony  at  New 
Amsterdam,  named  Peter  Stuyvesant,  came  down  and  took  the 
Swedish  fort  and  town,  and  brought  it  all  under  Dutch  rule.  The 
Swedes  gave  in  very  peaceably,  and  this  was  the  end  of  their  colonies 
in  America. 

But  there  was  not  a  very  long  triumph  for  the  Dutch  in  their 
Swedish  possessions.  Before  I  tell  you  how  they  came  to  lose  them, 
however,  I  must  tell  you  about  some  changes  which  had  been  tak¬ 
ing  place  in  England. 

Oliver  Cromwell,  after  being  made  Lord  Protector  of  England, 
had  ruled  a  number  of  years  very  quietly.  But  death  overtook  him 
in  the  midst  of  his  power,  and  after  his  death  nobody  among  the 
Puritans  was  bold  enough  or  strong  enough  to  take  up  the  crown 
and  put  it  on  his  head  as  Cromwell  had  done.  Oliver’s  son  Rich¬ 
ard  tried  to  rule,  but  he  was  too  weak  to  hold  the  power,  and  the 
people,  seeing  all  things  unsettled,  began  to  think  they  wanted 
their  king  again. 

Charles  I.  had  a  son  Charles,  who  was  now  in  France,  where 
all  the  royal  family  had  fled  when  the  king  was  beheaded.  The 
English  people  sent  for  this  son,  and  he  was  brought  back  to  Lon¬ 
don,  crowned  king,  and  seated  on  the  throne  where  his  father  and 
grandfather  had  been  seated  before  him.  He  was  a  good-natured, 
dissipated,  indolent,  unprincipled,  generous,  untrustworthy  young 
fellow,  and  was  if  anything  more  unfit  to  be  king  than  his  prede¬ 
cessors.  This  bringing  back  of  the  Stuart  family  to  the  throne 
they  called  the  “  Restoration ,”  and  all  the  Cavaliers  were  in  high 
feather  about  it. 

Charles  II.  began  giving  away  his  lands  in  America  at  a  great 
rate.  He  spent  money  faster  than  a  mint  could  have  coined  it,  and 
kept  his  pockets  as  empty  as  a  beggar’s  the  most  part  of  the  time. 
And  as  for  land,  Columbus  might  have  found  a  continent  every  year 
or  two  to  furnish  this  improvident  king  with  acres  enough  to  give 
to  his  friends  and  companions. 

One  of  the  first  things  he  did  was  to  give  away  all  the  territory 
where  the  Dutch  and  Swedes  had  settled,  to  his  brother  James,  the 
Duke  of  York.  This  was  in  1664,  and  while  that  same  stout  old 
Peter  Stuyvesant,  who  had  conquered  the  Swedes,  was  still  governor 


118 


STORY  OF  OUT?  COUNTRY. 


•there.  James  sent  over  a  fleet  of  English  ships,  which  after  some 
little  trouble  took  the  island  of  Manhattan,  and  run  up  the  English 
flag  over  the  whirring  windmills  of  New  Amsterdam. 

Peter  Stuyvesant  found  it  hard  to  give  up,  but  there  was  no  help 
for  it,  and  for  that  time  the  Dutch  rule  ended  in  America,  and  the 
city  of  New  Amsterdam  became  New  York ,  so  called  after  its  owner, 
the  Duke  of  York. 


New  York  in  1664. 


The  Dutch  settlers  remained,  however,  and  they  have  left  many 
traces  of  their  customs  and  manners  on  the  State  and  city ;  and  many 
of  the  villages  and  towns  on  the  Hudson  still  bear  their  Dutch 
names. 

James  sold  his  right  to  New  Albion ,  as  the  English  still  called  it, 
to  Sir  George  Carteret,  a  noble  Cavalier  who  had  fought  for  the 
crown  ;  and  it  was  then  named  New  Jersey,  in  honor  of  a  gallant 
defense  of  the  Isle  of  Jersey  in  the  English  Channel,  where  Carteret 
had  commanded. 

Thus  these  flourishing  colonies  came  under  English  rule,  without 
any  of  the  trouble  of  settlement  or  clearing  the  wilderness.  And 
thus  New  York  and  New  Jersey,  as  well  as  Virginia  and  New 
England,  became  colonies  subject  to  the  crown  of  England. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

SETTLEMENT  OF  MARYLAND. 

Lord  Baltimore  and  the  Carolinas. — Roman  Catholic  Colony. —  Indian  Wonder  at  the  Big 
Canoe.  —  Freedom  to  worship  God.  —  Papists  and  Puritans.  —  Lord  Baltimore’s  Ambition. 
—  Maryland  one  of  the  King’s  Colonies.  — Ribault  and  Raleigh’s  Unsuccessful  Colonies.  — 
The  Carolinas  settled  again. 


By  the  terms  of  the  charter  of  the  London  Company,  as  I  have 
before  explained  to  you,  all  the  land  between  Cape  Fear  and  the 
Potomac  River  was  called  South  Virginia.  In  1632  a  nobleman  in 
England  named  Sir  George  Calvert,  Lord  of  Baltimore,  had  ob¬ 
tained  a  grant  of  all  that  part  of  South  Virginia  lying  on  Chesa- 


SETTLEMENT  OF  MARYLAND. 


119 


peake  Bay  north  of  the  Potomac  River.  This  Lord  Baltimore  had 
been  a  member  of  the  London  Company,  which  had  owned  South 
Virginia.  The  Calvert  family  were  Roman  Catholics,  and  since  the 
time  of  Elizabeth  you  know  it  had  been  very  unpopular,  and  almost 
dangerous  to  be  a  Catholic  in  England.  George  Calvert  lived  in  the 
reign  of  Charles  I.  (the  monarch  who  afterward  had  his  head  cut 
off),  and  he  was  so  strong  a  friend  of  the  king  that,  in  spite  of  his 
religion,  Charles  was  glad  to  grant  him  any  favors  he  could. 

Lord  Baltimore’s  design  was  to  plant  a  colony  in  this  new  world, 
where  the  people  of  his  church  might  wor¬ 
ship  peacefully,  and  he  once  sent  a  band  of 
colonists  to  Acadia,  which  is  now  called 
Nova  Scotia.  But  it  was  so  cold  and  bleak 
there  that  he  became  discouraged.  Just 
after  he  had  obtained  the  grant  of  the  lands 
on  the  Chesapeake  Bay,  he  was  taken  ill 
and  died.  He  did  not  see  his  plans  carried 
out  after  all  his  labors. 

His  lands  fell  to  his  son  Cecil,  who  was 
now  Lord  Baltimore,  and  he  sent  his  brother 
Leonard  with  a  colony  to  America.  All  these  people  were  Catholics, 
and  among  them  were  a  number  of  Jesuit  priests,  avIio  came  for  the 
humane  purpose  of  Christianizing  and  civilizing  the  Indians.  In  the 
fall  of  1633  this  colony  arrived,  and  sailing  up  the  Potomac,  began 
building  a  town  on  its  north  bank,  which  they  named  St.  Mary’s. 
They  called  all  their  country  Maryland ,  in  honor  of  the  queen  of 
Charles  I.  Her  name  was  Henrietta  Maria ,  and  as  she  was  a 
devout  Catholic  herself,  she  sympathized  with,  and  had  probably 
aided  the  colony. 

The  Indians  in  this  part  of  the  country  were  not  accustomed  to 
the  sight  of  the  white  men,  whose  settlements  were  some  distance  to 
the  south  of  this.  They  ran  to  the  shore  to  welcome  the  new-comers, 
and  ran  back  again  to  the  woods  to  tell  their  comrades  that  there 
was  “  a  canoe  as  big  as  an  island  with  as  many  men  in  it  as  there 
were  trees  in  the  forest”  had  come  to  their  land.  They  did  not 
know  that  a  ship  was  built  board  by  board,  and  they  wondered  where 
a  tree  could  grow  big  enough  to  hollow  out  such  a  great  canoe. 

Lord  Baltimore’s  colony  bought  the  land  about  St.  Mary’s  of  the 
Indians,  paying  them  with  axes,  hoes,  and  yards  of  cloth  for  cloth¬ 
ing.  They  set  up  a  cross  in  the  wilderness,  and  from  the  first  tried 


Lord  Baltimore. 


120 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


to  win  the  Indians  to  the  Christian  religion  in  the  same  mild 
way  John  Eliot  used  in  Massachusetts.  One  law  passed  by  Lord 
Baltimore  does  him  honor.  lie  decreed  that  all  persons  in  that 
colony  should  worship  God  in  their  own  way  without  interference, 
or  any  persecution  on  account  of  their  religion.  The  only  people 
they  left  out  of  this  liberal  law  were  the  Unitarians.  They  would 
not  allow  them  any  rights  there.  Like  Roger  Williams  in  Rhode 
Island,  they  were  unusually  generous  about  making  laws  over 
any  one’s  conscience.  On  this  account  many  Puritans  from  Vir¬ 
ginia  who  had  been  persecuted  by  the  Episcopalians,  or  Church  of 
England  party  there,  came  to  Maryland ;  Quakers  came  from  Mas¬ 
sachusetts,  and  the  colony  grew  rapidly. 

Previously  to  the  coming  of  the  Catholics,  however,  a  man 
named  William  Claybourne  had  settled  on  an  island  in  Chesapeake 
Bay,  and  treated  with  the  Indians  in  Maryland.  Naturally  he  did 
not  relish  the  coming  of  this  new  colony,  and  tried  by  all  the  means 
in  his  power  to  prevent  its  growth.  As  soon  as  the  Puritan  party 
there  began  to  grow  stronger,  he  found  them  a  great  aid  in  his  ani¬ 
mosity  against  Lord  Baltimore.  For  no  sooner  did  the  Puritans 
begin  to  grow  influential,  than  their  intense  dislike  of  “  Popery  and 
Papists  ”  made  them  rather  too  inclined  to  be  forgetful  of  the  liberal¬ 
ity  which  had  been  shown  them  in  Maryland.  They  had  fled  from 
Virginia  to  escape  the  persecution  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  as 
soon  as  they  waxed  in  strength  elsewhere,  they  began  to  desire  to 
oppress  the  Quakers  and  Catholics.  I  think  it  would  have  been 
better  if  they  could  have  all  agreed  to  worship  God,  each  in  his  own 
way,  and  let  each  other  alone.  But  that  easy  way  of  settling  a 
quarrel  never  seems  to  have  occurred  to  people  in  their  wars  about 
religion. 

Lord  Baltimore,  the  lord  proprietor  of  the  colony,  wished  to  be 
the  undisputed  ruler  of  his  property  in  Maryland.  He  was  ambi¬ 
tious  to  be  a  great  baron,  who  should  be  accountable  to  nobody. 
In  all  his  laws  and  decrees  he  said  little  about  the  king’s  authority, 
but  spoke  only  of  himself.  It  had  been  the  custom  of  the  province 
to  ask  all  who  joined  the  colony  to  take  an  oath  of  fidelity  to  the 
“  lord  proprietor,”  and  swear  to  serve  his  interests.  This  oath  was 
not  relished  by  the  Puritans,  who  grew  to  hold  a  large  majority  in 
two  counties  of  the  province,  Anne  Arundel  and  Kent  counties. 
As  soon  as  Oliver  Cromwell  came  in,  they  rebeled  and  would  show 
no  allegiance  to  Lord  Baltimore,  who,  they  claimed,  took  on  himself 


SETTLEMENT  OF  MARYLAND. 


121 


the  rights  of  a  king.  They  said,  “  we  will  only  recognize  the  Par¬ 
liament  of  England.”  There  was  a  good  deal  of  quarreling  for  sev¬ 
eral  years,  and  some  bloodshed.  In  1654  the  colonists  drove  away 
George  Stone,  who  was  Lord  Baltimore’s  governor,  and  took  the 
colony  into  their  own  hands. 

The  Calverts  were  always  royalists  at  heart,  although  they  kept 
very  quiet  about  their  opinions  while  Cromwell  was  in  power ;  but 
when  Charles  Stuart  was  restored  he  gave  them  their  power  again 
in  Maryland,  because  he  knew  they  had  always  been  his  friends. 
They  governed  it  for  thirty  years,  till  William  and  Mary  became 
king  and  queen  (you  will  hear  more  about  them  hereafter),  and  then 
it  was  made  a  province  of  the  crown  of  England  and  was  called  one 
of  the  king's  colonies. 

I  trust  you  have  not  forgotten  poor  John  Ribault’s  attempt  to 
settle  at  Port  Royal  in  the  present  State  of  South  Carolina ,  and  the 
unsuccessful  attempts  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  to  found  colonies  on 
the  coast  of  North  Carolina.  It  was  Ribault  who  gave  the  Caro- 
linas  their  name  in  honor  of  Charles  IX.  of  France.  For  a  long 
time,  however,  these  States  were  not  divided,  but  both  bore  the 
name  of  Carolina. 

After  Raleigh  there  was  no  attempt  to  settle  until  the  time  of 
Charles  II.  A  small  company  of  Puritans  from  Virginia  had  gone 
there  to  escape  the  persecutions  of  the  English  Church,  and  had  built 
a  town  called  Albemarle.  In  1663  Charles  II.  gave  the  Carolinas 
to  eight  noblemen  of  his  court,  who  began  to  send  out  families  to 
settle  there.  They  took  with  them  a  code  of  laws  drawn  up  by  a 
celebrated  philosopher  named  John  Locke.  But  they  found  that 
they  were  obliged  to  make  quite  different  laws  when  they  got  to 
America,  to  suit  the  condition  of  the  country.  Wise  as  he  was,  Mr. 
Locke  was  not  wise  enough  to  know  what  was  best  for  people  in  a 
wild  country  never  inhabited  by  civilized  men. 

Part  of  the  colonists  to  Carolina  went  to  Albemarle,  and  that 
made  the  beginning  of  North  Carolina.  A  part  went  farther  south, 
and  laid  out  the  town  of  Charleston,  and  that  was  the  first  town  of 
South  Carolina.  The  new  towns  grew  rapidly.  People  began  now 
to  pour  into  the  fertile  Carolinas.  Swiss,  Irish,  and  German  Prot¬ 
estants  came  there,  and  a  good  many  Quakers  came  also.  One  of 
the  best  governors  they  ever  had  was  a  good  Quaker  named  John 
Archdale.  The  people  loved  him  dearly.  They  had  a  great  deal 
of  trouble  with  their  governors  sometimes.  The  eight  owners  in 


122 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


England  would  choose  any  man  to  whom  they  wanted  to  give  an 
office,  and  he  would  take  ship  and  come  over  to  rule  the  colony. 
Often,  all  he  cared  about  was  putting  money  in  his  purse.  He  did 
not  care  whether  the  colonies  prospered  or  not. 

The  Carolinas  had  trouble  with  the  Indians,  and  trouble  with 
pirates  too,  who  were  so  bold  that  they  would  sail  up  almost  into 
Charleston  harbor  and  take  the  ships  trading  there.  Then  they 
were  close  by  Florida,  which  was  still  owned  by  the  Spaniards, 
who  were  always  their  enemies.  But  they  would  have  prospered  if 
it  had  not  been  for  their  bad  governors,  and  did  prosper  in  spite  of 
them,  till  they  could  bear  them  no  longer,  when  in  1719  they  got 
the  king  of  England  to  take  them  as  his  own  colonies,  like  Massa¬ 
chusetts  and  Virginia.  After  that  they  went  on  quite  smoothly  for 
a  great  many  years.  The  king  named  the  two  provinces  North  and 
South  Carolina,  Albemarle  being  the  largest  town  of  one,  and 
Charleston  of  the  other. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

THE  QUAKER  SETTLEMENT. 

Persecution  of  Quakers.  —  William  Penn,  the  Admiral.  —  His  only  Son  turns  Quaker.  —  Dress 
and  Manners  of  Quakers.  — Young  Penn  inherits  his  Father’s  Wealth.  — He  brings  a  Colony 
to  America.  —  Treaty  with  Indians.  —  City  of  Brotherly  Love.  —  Naming  of  Pennsylvania.  — 
Delaware  made  a  Separate  C0I0113'. 

Through  all  this  period  in  which  so  many  settlements  were 
being  made,  there  was  a  large  tract  of  country  between  Virginia 
and  New  York  which  had  not  yet  been  given  away  by  that  generous 
beggar,  King  Charles  II.,  to  any  of  his  friends  or  boon  companions. 
This  large  tract,  which  is  now  the  State  of  Pennsylvania,  was  quite 
neglected.  The  Swedes  and  Dutch  had  gone  up  the  Delaware  River, 
and  there  were  planters  near  Trenton,  New  Jersey,  and  in  the  vi¬ 
cinity  of  Wilmington,  Delaware.  English,  Quakers,  Puritans,  and 
Church  of  England  people  had  also  come  into  these  two  little  States. 
But  great  broad-acred  Pennsylvania  lay  unowned  and  unclaimed 
except  by  Indians.  In  1681  all  the  land  was  granted  to  William 
Penn,  a  celebrated  Quaker,  of  whom  I  am  now  going  to  tell  you. 

I  have  spoken  a  great  many  times  of  the  Quakers,  a  large  number 
of  whom  had  left  England  and  come  to  this  country,  for  the  same 


4 


THE  QUAKER  SETTLEMENT.  123 

reason  that  the  Puritans  came,  —  that  they  might  have  liberty  to 
worship  God  in  the  way  they  liked  best.  But  they  did  not  fare 
much  better  in  this  country  than  in  England.  In  Massachusetts 
they  had  been  most  vilely  treated,  even  to  the  cutting  off  their  ears 
and  slitting  open  their  noses.  They  had  been  whipped  in  the  streets 
and  had  their  tongues  put  in  cleft  sticks  for  preaching  what  they  be¬ 
lieved  to  be  true.  To  this  day,  on  the  beautiful  Common  in  Boston, 
Massachusetts,  an  elm-tree  is  standing,  on  whose  boughs  the  Puritans 
hanged  a  woman  named  Mary  Dyer,  because  she  was  a  Quaker  and 
preached  their  doctrines.  Very  good  doctrines  they  were,  too,  teach¬ 
ing  lessons  of  peace  and  good-will  to  men,  and  telling  people  not  to 
go  to  war,  but  counseling  all  to  live  in  peace  and  love  together.  No¬ 
body  who  is  born  in  humane  and  liberal  Boston  to-day  can  remember 
the  hanging  of  Mary  Dyer  without  being  ashamed  of  his  ancestors. 

In  England  the  Quakers  had  a  hard  struggle  to  maintain  their 
faith.  But  still  their  numbers  grew  and  grew,  and  very  early  they 
looked  to  America  as  a  land  of  refuge,  where  they  could  live  in 
peace. 

In  the  court  of  Charles  II.  there  was  a  noted  admiral  named 
Sir  William  Penn,  who  had  been  made  a  baronet  for  his  services  to 
his  country.  This  nobleman  had  a  son  William,  on  whom  he  lav¬ 
ished  all  his  hopes.  All  possible  pains  were  taken  with  his  educa¬ 
tion.  When  only  a  boy  he  was  sent  to  one  of  the  best  colleges  in 
England.  But  in  college  he  met  with  a  young  Quaker,  who  con¬ 
verted  him  to  his  religion.  When  young  William  Penn  went  back 
to  his  father,  the  old  gentleman  was  outraged  and  horrified  beyond 
description  to  find  his  son  had  turned  from  the  Church  of  England, 
in  which  he  was  brought  up,  and  had  become  one  of  a  despised  sect, 
on  whom  Sir  William  looked  with  contempt.  Worse  than  that,  his 
son  —  the  son  of  a  warrior  who  had  fought  battles  for  old  England  — 
had  become  a  man  of  peace,  who  hated  war,  and  said,  “  If  a  man 
smite  thee  on  one  cheek  turn  to  him  the  other  also.”.  The  Quakers, 
too,  were  plain  in  dress,  and  would  not  wear  the  gorgeous  clothes  of 
the  Cavaliers.  Instead,  they  wore  broad-brimmed  hats,  drab-colored 
clothes,  and  long-skirted  coats.  They  said  “  thee  ”  and  “  thou  ” 
instead  of  “  you.”  They  did  not  take  off  their  hats  to  any  man,  and 
all  their  habits  were  unlike  those  of  the  court  of  King  Charles,  and 
consequently  very  shocking  to  the  proud  old  admiral. 

Sir  William  Penu  scolded  and  argued  and  raved.  He  sent  the 
young  man  to  the  Continent  of  Europe,  hoping  that  he  might  there 


124  STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 

be  cured  of  his  notions.  Young  William  visited  Paris,  went  into  Italy, 

and  through  the  gay  capi¬ 
tals  of  Europe,  and  came 
back  a  polished,  elegant 
gentleman,  versed  in  the 
manners  of  courts,  well-in¬ 
formed  and  well-bred,  — 
but  still  a  Quaker.  His 
father  allowed  him  to  live 
in  his  house,  but  refused  to 
set  eyes  on  him.  Before  he 
died,  however,  he  was  rec¬ 
onciled  to  him,  and  left  him 
his  fortune,  which  was  very 
large. 

William  Penn’s  wealth 
and  position,  and  the 
friendship  of  the  king  for 
his  father,  preserved  him 
from  severe  persecution. 
Besides,  the  monarch  was 
deeply  in  debt  to  Sir  Will¬ 
iam,  and  when  young  Penn 
proposed  to  take  a  tract  of  land  in  America  in  payment  for  these 
debts  and  settle  a  colony  of  Quakers  there,  I  fancy  the  king  thought 
it  a  happy  bargain.  Charles  II.  and  his  brother  James  always  liked 
William  Penn,  and  he  had  large  influence  at  court. 

In  1682  Penn  came  to  America  with  a  party  of  Quakers.  They 
entered  the  Delaware  River  and  sailed  up  to  the  site  of  the  city  of 
Philadelphia.  Before  beginning  this  settlement  Penn  held  a  -coun¬ 
cil  with  all  the  Indians  who  owned  the  land  which  the  king  had 
given  him.  The  meeting  was  held  under  a  spreading  oak  which 
has  been  famous  ever  since.  There  the  English  gentleman,  in  his 
drab  long-skirted  coat  and  broad  hat,  met  the  Indians  in  all  their 
glory  of  feathers  and  war-paint,  glittering  strings  of  wampum,  and 
drapery  of  furs. 

He  paid  the  Indians  fairly  for  their  lands,  and  made  with  them  a 
treaty  of  peace  which  was  never  broken.  Like  Roger  Williams  in 
Rhode  Island,  Penn  was  always  loved  and  revered  by  the  red  man. 
The  great  oak-tree  near  Philadelphia,  under  which  he  made  his 


GEORGIA  SETTLED. 


125 


treaty,  flourished  for  many  years,  and  now,  on  the  spot  where  it 
grew,  a  monument  is  built. 

The  name  of  Philadelphia  means  “  city  of  brotherly  love,”  and 
here  Penn  wished  that  those  of  his  religion,  and  all  other  religions, 
should  dwell  together  in  peace.  None  of  the  early  cities  of  America 
was  so  carefully  laid  out  as  this. 

The  land  of  which  he  became  owner  Penn  wished  to  call  “  Sy1- 
vania,”  from  a  Latin  word  meaning  “forest.”  But  the  secretary,  in 
writing  the  deed,  made  the  name  Pennsylvania,  or  “  Penn’s  forest.” 
Penn  objected  to  this,  because  he  did  not  believe  in  “vain  titles” 
as  he  called  them  ;  but  the  king  insisted  that  the  name  should  stand 
in  honor  of  Penn’s  father,  and  so  it  stands  to  this  day. 

Pennsylvania  Quakers  had  learned  a  noble  lesson  from  their  per¬ 
secutions, — the  lesson  of  tolerance.  Their 
laws  were  the  best  and  most  generous  of 
any  colony.  All  men  and  women  who  be¬ 
lieved  in  the  Heavenly  Father  could  there 
worship  Him  in  peace. 

For  twenty-two  years  after  Pennsylvania 
was  settled,  the  little  State  of  Delaware  was 
a  part  of  this  large  State.  In  1703  those  counties  of  Pennsylvania 
which  make  the  State  of  Delaware,  petitioned  to  be  allowed  to  make 
a  colony  by  themselves,  and  this  was  granted,  and  from  that  time 
Delaware  paid  allegiance  only  to  the  crown  of  England. 


Penn’s  Assembly  House. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

GEORGIA  SETTLED. 

Another  Colony  planned. — General  Oglethorpe.  —  The  Town  of  Savannah  begun. _ Ogle¬ 

thorpe’s  Treaty. — Speech  of  Indian  War-chief.  —  March  of  Salzburgers. — Pro-slavery 
Agitators  — John  Wesley,  the  Great  Methodist.  —  Georgia  becomes  a  Roval  Province. 

After  the  settlements  in  the  Carolinas  at  Albemarle  and  Charles¬ 
ton,  the  settlers  there  had  great  trouble  with  Indians.  They  finally 
made  a  treaty  in  which  they  promised  they  would  make  no  settle¬ 
ment  west  of  the  Savannah  River.  This  promise  was  so  well  kept, 
that  when  Charleston  had  been  built  sixty  or  seventy  years  there 
was  not  an  English  town  beyond  the  Savannah. 

In  1732,  when  the  Carolina  colonies  were  flourishing,  and  Massa- 


126 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


chusetts  and  Virginia  were  quite  important  provinces;  when  Boston, 
New  York,  Philadelphia,  and  Charleston  were  populous  cities,  it 
was  proposed  in  England  to  colonize  this  southern  part  of  the  prov¬ 
ince  of  South  Carolina,  west  of  the  Savannah.  The  king  now  rul¬ 
ing  England  was  George  II.,  a  man  from  a  different  family  from 
the  Charleses,  of  whom  wre  have  heard  so  often.  This  George  II. 
gave  the  right  to  colonize  to  a  company  of  men  called  “  Trustees  of 
the  Colony  of  Georgia.”  They  called  it  Georgia,  in  honor  of  their 
king.  The  trustees  were  to  hold  these  lands  for  twenty-one  years, 
and  do  their  best  to  make  a  successful  colony.  They  selected  one 

of  their  number,  General  James 
Oglethorpe,  to  go  out  with  the  col¬ 
ony  and  see  that  they  had  comforta¬ 
ble  homes  there.  General  Oglethorpe 
was  a  soldier,  and  a  wise,  generous 
gentleman.  The  trustees  thought  it 
wise  to  send  a  military  man,  because 
the  Indians,  who  lived  across  the 
river,  had  always  been  considered 
dangerous,  and  the  Spaniards  in 
Florida  were  so  near  Georgia,  it  was 
General  Oglethorpe.  thought  best  to  be  prepared  to  act  on 


the  defensive  against  them. 

The  trustees  collected  forty  families  for  their  colony.  They  were 
most  of  them  poor  people,  who  were  glad  to  go  where  they  could 
get  lands  and  make  towns  of  their  own.  A  missionary  society  in 
London  also  raised  money  and  sent  it  over  to  Germany,  to  help 
some  poor  Protestants  called  Salzburgers ,  who  had  been  dreadfully 
abused  on  account  of  their  religion,  to  go  to  Oglethorpe's  colony. 

General  Oglethorpe  sailed  in  November,  1732,  and  on  January  20, 
1733,  he  reached  Charleston,  South  Carolina.  He  had  with  him 
one  hundred  and  fourteen  persons.  After  they  had  rested  a  little 
they  went  to  the  mouth  of  the  Savannah,  and  Oglethorpe  went  up 
the  river  to  pick  out  a  place  for  a  town.  He  chose  a  site,  and  they 
at  once  began  to  lay  it  out  as  compactly  as  they  could,  so  that  the 
people  might  be  close  together  in  case  the  Indians  or  Spaniards 
should  attack  them.  This  town  they  called  Savannah.  It  is  the 
oldest  town  in  Georgia. 

Very  soon  General  Oglethorpe  sent  for  some  of  the  Indian  chiefs 
and  held  a  parley  with  them.  There  came  eleven  chiefs,  each  with  his 


GEORGIA  SETTLED 


127 


attendants,  and  all  behaved  with  great  dignity.  One  of  these  chiefs 
made  a  speech,  in  which  he  said,  that  though  “  they  were  poor  and 
ignorant,  He  who  had  given  them  breath,  had  given  the  English 
breath  also.  He  who  had  made  them  both,  had  given  most  wisdom 
to  the  white  man.  They  were  all  firmly  persuaded  that  the  Great 
Power  which  dwelt  in  heaven  and  all  around,  had  sent  the  Eng¬ 
lish  here  to  teach  them,  their  wives,  and  children.  Therefore  they 
would  freely  give  them  all  the  land  they  did  not  use  themselves.” 

He  made  a  very  good  speech,  indeed,  for  an  unlearned  savage  ; 
and  two  Englishmen,  who  had  lived  in  America  for  several  years, 
translated  it  for  Oglethorpe.  When  he  got  through,  the  chiefs  of 
eight  tribes  laid  a  bundle  of  deer-skins  at  General  Oglethorpe’s  feet. 
Then  the  general  gave  them  each  a  suit  of  clothes,  with  some 
coarser  cloth  for  their  attendants,  and  gave  them  fire-arms,  tobacco- 
pipes,  cloth,  linen,  and  several  other  tilings  to  take  away.  The 
Indians  always  kept  peace  with  Oglethorpe,  and  he  always  heard 
their  complaints  of  any  ill-treatment,  on  the  part  of  his  colonists, 
with  justice  and  humanity. 

About  a  year  after  Oglethorpe  had  settled  in  Savannah,  the  first 
ship-load  of  the  Salzburgers  came.  They  were  very  good  people, 
and  were  welcome  to  the  colony.  Before  leaving  Germany  this 
little  band  of  pilgrims,  who  had  suffered  as  much  for  their  religion 
as  the  Pilgrims  in  Plymouth,  had  walked  in  procession  from  the  bor¬ 
ders  of  Austria  to  the  sea-coast,  in  order  to  take  ship  and  leave 
their  native  land,  to  find  freedom  in  Georgia. 

The  colony  began  with  some  of  the  wisest  laws  passed  by  any 
of  the  colonies.  First,  they  forbade  the  use  of  rum  in  the  colony, 
and  the  sale  of  it  to  the  Indians,  because  Oglethorpe  declared  that 
rum  was  the  chief  cause  of  the  quarrels  between  the  whites  and 
Indians,  from  which  the  Indian  wars  arose.  Instead  of  strong  liq¬ 
uors  like  rum,  he  tried  to  introduce  English  ale  or  beer  among 
the  people.  Next,  he  made  a  law  which  forbade  any  colonists  to 
hold  negro  slaves.  He  wished  to  encourage  white  labor,  because 
he  did  not  believe  in  slavery,  and  thought  it  bad  for  the  colony. 
Ever  since  the  Dutch  in  1620  had  sold  the  first  slaves  in  Virginia, 
slavery  had  been  increasing  there  and  in  the  Carolinas.  So  that 
Oglethorpe’s  attempt  to  keep  it  out  of  Georgia  was  not  popular 
among  his  colonists. 

The  colony  had  some  trouble  with  the  Spaniards  in  Florida,  and 
once  Oglethorpe  invaded  Florida,  and  made  an  unsuccessful  attack 


128 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


on  St.  Augustine.  His  great  trouble,  however,  was  on  account  of 
his  two  laws  against  rum  and  slavery.  Some  colonists  were  so 
indignant  because  they  could  not  hold  slaves,  that  they  went  to. 
Charleston,  and  wrote  bitter  letters  to  England  against  Oglethorpe. 

Rev.  John  Wesley,  who  was  the  head  and  founder  of  the  Metho¬ 
dist  Church,  —  one  of  the  best  and  sweetest  of  Christians,  — was  in 
Georgia  when  these  pro-slavery  colonists  were  stirring  up  sedition 
there.  They  abused  him  as  being  a  “  hypocrite  and  more  than  half 
Roman  Catholic,”  and  accused  him  of  many  bad  deeds.  After  his 
return  to  England,  John  Wesley  denounced  slavery  in  America  as 
44  the  sum  of  all  villainies.”  I  presume  what  he  saw  in  the  Carolina^ 
helped  him  to  this  conclusion. 

But  Oglethorpe  found  his  colonial  labor  an  ungrateful  one.  He 
was  a  noble  gentleman,  and  deserves  to  be  ranked  beside  John 
Smith,  John  Wintlirop,  Roger  Williams,  and  William  Penn.  But 
he  had  so  much  trouble  with  the  disaffected  colonists  in  Georgia, 
that  he  said  at  last  he  was  sick  of  the  name  of  the  colony  and  glad 
to  return  to  England. 

After  the  twenty-one  years  had  expired  for  which  the  trustees 
held  their  charter,  it  was  given  up  to  George  II.,  and  Georgia  be¬ 
came  a  royal  colony.  They  had  negro  slaves  after  that,  and  as 
much  strong  drink  as  they  wanted. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

KING  PHILIP  S  WAR. 

The  Thirteen  Colonies.  —  The  Colonists’  Fear  of  the  Indians.  —  Philip,  the  Son  of  friendly  Mas- 
sasoit.  —  John  Sassamon  tells  Tales  of  Philip.  —  Blood  shed  by  English  and  Indians.  —  Out¬ 
break  of  Indian  War.  —  The  Attack  on  Hadley. —  “  The  Indians  !  The  Indians  !  ” —  Appear¬ 
ance  of  the  Strange  Warrior.  —  The  Regicides.  —  Death  of  King  Philip.  —  End  of  the  War. 


We  have  now  heard  all  about  the  settlement  of  the  thirteen  col¬ 
onies  which  afterwards  became  the  first  States  in  this  Union.  These 
thirteen  colonies  were  Virginia,  Massachusetts,  New  Hampshire, 
New  York,  Maryland,  Connecticut,  Rhode  Island,  New  Jersey r 
North  Carolina,  South  Carolina,  Pennsylvania,  Delaware,  and  Geor¬ 
gia.  Maine  had  also  been  settled,  but  it  was  a  part  of  Massachu¬ 
setts  until  after  the  Union  was  formed. 

By  recalling  the  dates,  you  will  see  that  Virginia  was  settled  in 


KING  PHILIP’S  WAR. 


129 


1607,  and  Massachusetts  thirteen  years  after,  while  Georgia,  the  last 
colony,  was  begun  in  1732,  more  than  one  hundred  years  later.  I 
wish  you  would  also  recall  the  differences  between  the  early  settlers 
in  these  States,  the  Puritans  in  Massachusetts,  the  Cavaliers  in  Vir¬ 
ginia,  the  Dutch  traders  in  New  York,  the  Quakers  in  Pennsylva¬ 
nia,  and  the  Catholics  in  Maryland,  and  you  can  see  when  all  these 
different  kinds  of  people,  of  diverse  countries,  and  many  religious 
beliefs,  were  blended  together  into  one  nation,  they  must  have 
brought  together  a  great  many  manners  and  customs,  which  united 
to  form  a  broad,  liberal  country,  where  all  nations  on  the  earth  could 
find  a  home. 

For  a  long  time,  partly  because  they  were  the  oldest  settlements, 
Massachusetts  and  Virginia  remained  the  principal  colonies,  and 
were  the  centre  of  the  most  important  events.  We  will  now  return 
to  the  New  England  settlements,  and  see  what  they  had  been  doing 
up  to  the  time  the  last  emigration  came  to  Georgia. 

Massachusetts  was  still  the  leading  colony  there.  Beside  Mas¬ 
sachusetts  Bay  and  Plymouth  Colony,  she  owned  the  province  of 
Maine.  Her  two  oldest  settlements  had  towns  up  and  down  the 
sea-coast,  and  were  rapidly  spreading  into  the  interior  toward  the 
Connecticut  River.  Rhode  Island  and  Connecticut  had  also  many 
growing  towns,  and  the  coasts  of  Maine  and  New  Hampshire  were 
the  resort  of  fishermen  and  fur  traders,  and  many  ships  came  to  their 
ports  to  take  away  fish  and  timber. 

The  great  cause  of  anxiety  in  Massachusetts,  for  the  first  century 
of  its  growth,  was  from  war  with  Indians.  Notwithstanding  the 
efforts  of  good  John  Eliot  to  do  good  to  the  Indians,  and  make  them 
Christians,  the  English,  as  a  general  thing,  did  not  get  on  any  bet¬ 
ter  with  the  savages  than  the  Spanish  explorers  did.  With  the  ex¬ 
ception  of  Roger  Williams,  William  Penn,  and  James  Oglethorpe, 
the  founders  of  the  colonies  do  not  seem  to  have  taken  the  humane 
ground,  that  the  Indians  were  human  beings,  and  brothers  in  the 
great  family  of  God.  Eliot’s  labors  had  formed  a  community  at 
Natick,  who  were  civilized,  and  known  as  “  praying  Indians.” 
But  the  greater  part  of  the  Indians  in  New  England  looked  with 
distrust  on  the  pale-faces. 

I  hope  you  have  not  forgotten  Massasoit,  the  Indian  chief  who 
visited  the  Plymouth  Colony  and  smoked  the  pipe  of  peace  with 
Governor  Carver.  During  his  life,  Massasoit  kept  faith  with  the 
white  men,  and  once  revealed  to  them  the  plot  of  another  Indian 


130 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


tribe  which  endangered  their  safety.  After  Massasoit  died,  his  son 
Metacomet,  whom  the  white  men  called  Philip ,  became  chief  of  his 

tribe.  King  Philip  seems  to  have  been  a  brave 
warrior,  and  a  man  of  superior  mind.  He  was 
never  quite  contented  with  the  rapid  inroads 
which  the  English  were  making  in  the  country 
which  had  once  belonged  entirely  to  the  In¬ 
dians.  I  have  no  doubt  he  felt  something  as 
we  should,  if  a  company  of  men  much  wiser 
than  we,  and  superior  in  all  respects  to  our¬ 
selves,  should  come  here  to  America,  begin 
King  Philip  building  magnificent  cities  all  over  our  coun¬ 

try,  and  keep  crowding  us  farther  and  farther  from  the  places  we 
had  called  our  own.  It  would  be  rather  hard  to  bear,  would  it  not? 

The  chief  abode  of  Philip  was  at  Mount  Hope,  a  hill  near  the 
town  of  Bristol,  Rhode  Island.  Here  around  the  camp-fire  the 
rude  monarch  may  have  sat  with  his  war-chiefs,  mused  over  the 
past  glories  of  his  tribe,  and  thought  of  the  time  when  Massasoit, 
his  father,  owned  all  the  land  which  now  was  filled  with  the  farms 
and  villages  of  the  strangers,  till  his  heart  grew  heavy,  and  he 
vented  his  discontent  in  bitter  words.  Some  such  words  of  Philip 
were  overheard  by  a  “  praying  Indian  ”  named  John  Sassamon,  and 
he  went  at  once  and  told  the  white  people  that  Philip  was  plotting 
mischief  against  them.  It  is  not  known  whether  there  reallv  was 
any  plot  or  only  murmurings  of  discontent  among  the  savages. 
When  they  heard,  however,  that  Sassamon  had  told  tales  of  them, 
they  were  very  angry,  and  slew  him  as  soon  as  they  could  lay  hold 
of  him.  There  had  been  some  other  acts  of  hostility  before  this, 
and  growing  ill-feeling  on  both  sides. 

To  revenge  Sassamon’s  death  the  white  men  took  three  of 
Philip's  men  and  hung  them  on  the  gallows.  King  Philip  was  wise 
enough  to  foresee  that  these  things  must  end  in  misery  to  his  own 
people,  and  when  word  was  brought  him  that  there  had  been  blood 
shed  on  both  sides,  he  is  said  to  have  wept  tears  of  regret  that 
war  could  not  be  prevented. 

When  the  war  began  it  was  a  terrible  and  bloody  warfare.  The 
first  attack  was  made  by  Indians  on  a  party  peacefully  coming 
home  from  church.  The  Indians  rarely  left  any  one  alive,  not  even 
the  baby  at  its  mother’s  breast.  Those  they  left  alive  they  took 
away  as  prisoners,  made  them  suffer  great  hardships,  and  often  put 


KING  PHILIP’S  WAR.  131 

them  to  death,  with  slow  tortures,  at  some  of  their  war-feasts  or 
war-dances. 

King  Philip  made  a  treaty  with  one  of  the  neighboring  tribes 
(the  Narragansetts),  and  the  two  united 
made  great  havoc.  Up  and  down  the  Con¬ 
necticut  River  vallev,  from  the  borders  of 
Connecticut  to  what  is  now  the  State  of 
Vermont,  they  roamed  in  large  bands,  car¬ 
rying  horror  wherever  they  went.  They 
attacked  churches  where  the  congregations 
were  worshiping.  Every  church-goer  said  his  prayer,  “  Forgive  us 
our  trespasses,  as  we  forgive  those  who  trespass  against  us,”  with  his 
musket  close  by  his  side.  Everywhere  was  massacre  and  fighting. 
Sometimes  a  party  of  white  men  fell  upon  a  party  of  Indians  in 
their  wigwams  and  slew  them  all,  warriors  and  old  men,  and  even 
the  children.  Sometimes  they  carried  away  the  squaws  and  young 
ones,  to  be  sold  into  slavery,  which  the  Indians  feared  more  than 
death.  Often  the  white  woman  and  her  daughters  spinning  in  her 
farm-house  kitchen  with  the  little  children  playing  on  the  floor, 
would  see  an  Indian  tomahawk  come  flying  through  the  air  and 
cleave  the  baby’s  skull  ;  then  the  tall  forms  of  Indians  would 
darken  the  doorway,  and  they  would  rush  in  to  murder  the  wife  and 
daughters,  and  even  the  helpless  old  grandmother  sitting  by  the 
fireside.  At  sunset,  when  the  father  and  sons  came  home  from  the 
field  where  they  had  been  at  work,  they  would  find  only  the  smok¬ 
ing  ruins  of  their  homes,  and  dead  bodies  on  their  hearth-stone. 

The  war  began  in  the  summer  of  1675,  and  all  through  the  sum¬ 
mer  and  winter  it  was  kept  up  with  great  suffering  on  both  sides. 
The  towns  of  Brookfield  and  Deerfield  were  burnt.  A  terrible  bat¬ 
tle  was  fought  near  Deerfield,  which  is  called  the  “  Battle  of 
Bloody  Brook.” 

One  quiet  Sunday,  nearly  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  little  town  of 
Hadley  were  gathered  together  in  church.  All  the  old  men  and 
young  men,  mothers  with  nursing  babies  in  their  arms,  maidens 
and  little  children  were  in  the  house  of  worship.  The  minister 
was  at  prayer,  and  the  whole  congregation  was  as  still  as  death. 
Suddenly  arose  the  wild  cry,  “  The  Indians  !  The  Indians !  ” 

Every  man  seized  the  gun  which  stood  by  him.  The  women 
huddled  the  children  together,  and  stood  close  in  the  little  log 
church,  with  faces  pale  as  death.  The  men  met  the  red  foe  bravely, 


132 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


but  the  surprise  was  so  great,  and  the  numbers  so  unequal,  that 
the  Indians  were  fast  gaining  an  advantage.  All  at  once,  in  the 
middle  of  the  fight,  appeared  a  man  of  towering  height,  with  long 
streaming  hair  and  beard,  dressed  in  strange  wild  fashion.  He 
came  among  the  white  men  like  a  strong  deliverer.  Wherever  he 
went  the  Indians  fell  before  him.  The  courage  of  the  English 
began  to  rise.  They  thought  God  had  sent  a  warlike  angel,  or 
the  spirit  of  some  great  Hebrew  prophet  whom  they  revered,  to 
lead  them  out  of  this  sore  strait,  and  gathering  all  their  strength 
they  beat  back  the  enemy.  When  the  fight  was  over  the  stranger 
had  disappeared  as  quickly  as  he  had  come. 

It  was  not  until  long  after  that  it  was  discovered  who  this  un- 


Cave  of  the  Regicides. 


known  helper  was.  Many  believed  to  their  dying  day  that  he 
was  not  mortal  man.  But  long  after  this  story  was  told  :  When 
King  Charles  I.  had  his  head  cut  off  in  England,  four-and-twenty 
Puritan  judges  signed  the  sentence  of  death.  In  the  time  of  Crom¬ 
well,  these  judges  were  men  of  distinction  in  England,  but  as  soon 
as  Charles  II.  came  to  be  king,  he  offered  a  reward  for  the 
heads  of  the  men  who  had  condemned  his  father.  Two  of  them, 
Edward  Whalley  and  William  Goffe,  got  away  to  America,  and 
were  concealed  here,  and  secretly  harbored  by  the  Puritans.  They 


KING  PHILIP’S  WAR. 


133 


were  known  as  the  “  Regicides,”  which  means  “  king-mnrderers.” 
For  years  they  were  in  many  hiding-places.  They  lived  in  woods 
and  caves,  sometimes  daring  to  seek  shelter  in  lonely  farm-houses, 
where  the  people  sympathized  with  them.  There  is  to-day  a  place 
in  the  rocks  near  New  Haven,  Connecticut,  called  the  “  Regicides’ 
cave,”  where  they  were  once  hid.  Finally,  one  of  their  friends,  who 
lived  in  Hadley,  had  a  part  of  his  house  cunningly  divided  off,  and 
fitted  up  for  them.  And  there  they  lived  a  long  time,  no  one  in 
the  town  being  aware  of  their  abode  there.  It  was  William  Goffe, 
the  younger  of  the  two,  who  had  thus  aided  the  people  of  Hadley 
on  the  day  of  the  battle. 

During  the  winter  of  1675-76,  Josiah  Winslow,  who  was  a 
son  of  one  of  the  first  governors  of  Massachusetts,  with  1,000  men 
under  his  command,  went  to  conquer  these  “  bloody  heathen,”  as 
they  called  the  red  men.  It  was  desperate  fighting  on  both  sides. 
Neither  showed  any  humanity.  When  the  Indians  took  prisoners, 
they  tortured  them  horribly  till  they  died.  Once  when  the  white 
men  had  taken  the  body  of  an  Indian  woman,  a  princess  of  her 
tribe,  who  had  tried  hard  to  escape  by  swimming  and  was  drowned, 
they  were  not  content  with  getting  her  dead  body,  but  cut  off  the 
head  and  paraded  it  round  on  a  pole.  Before  the  summer  of  1676, 
the  white  men  had  conquered,  and  Philip,  who  had  lost  his  men  and 
lands,  and  had  neither  corn  to  eat  nor  powder  for  his  musket,  came 
wearily  back  to  Mount  Hope  to  die.  There  he  found  that  his  wife 
and  little  boy  had  been  taken  prisoners. 

“  It  is  enough,”  said  the  poor  chief,  when  he  heard  this.  “  Now 
my  heart  breaks.”  He  made  no  effort  to  escape  after  this,  and  was 
shot  by  an  Indian  friendly  to  the  whites. 

The  Puritans  debated  what  they  should  do  with  Philip’s  little  son 
who  was  their  prisoner.  Some  wanted  to  kill  him  outright,  others 
wanted  to  sell  him  into  slavery.  This  last  counsel  prevailed,  and 
he  was  sold  as  a  slave  in  the  West  India  Islands.  There  the  son  of 
King  Philip,  the  grandson  of  Massasoit,  who  for  a  life-time  kept 
faith  with  the  white  men,  ended  his  life  in  the  worst  kind  of  bond¬ 
age. 

After  Philip’s  death  peace  was  known  once  more.  But  Massachu¬ 
setts  had  suffered  terribly.  Connecticut  had  kept  clear  of  the  war, 
and  Rhode  Island  had  kept  peace  with  the  Indians,  although  part  of 
that  little  State  had  been  the  battle-ground,  and  Providence  and 
Warwick  were  partly  burned.  Massachusetts  had  lost  one  man  out 


134 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


of  every  twenty,  and  one  family  out  of  each  twenty  had  lost  their 
homes.  After  the  war,  the  Puritans  reasoned  that  it  had  been  a 
judgment  of  God  sent  upon  them  for  their  sins.  One  of  the  sins  on 
which  they  urged  this  penalty  was  that  they  had  not  been  severe 
enough  on  the  Quakers.  I  think  they  had  done  a  good  deal  more 
than  any  humane  persons  would  like  even  to  read  about  nowadays, 
but  it  seems  that  they  fancied  that  God  was  not  quite  satisfied  with 
them  and  would  have  liked  a  few  more  noses  and  ears  cut  off. 

As  soon  as  the  people  in  Massachusetts  began  to  recover  from  the 
dreadful  effect  of  the  Indian  massacres,  they  became  engaged  in  a 
law-suit  about  the  ownership  of  New  Hampshire  and  Maine.  You 
remember  Maine  had  been  granted  to  Fernando  Gorges,  and  New 
Hampshire  to  John  Mason.  Both  these  men  were  dead,  but  their 
heirs  were  living  and  claimed  these  countries.  It  was  finally 
settled  in  this  way :  Massachusetts  bought  Maine  in  1677  for  six 
thousand  dollars,  and  in  1680  New  Hampshire  came  under  the  con¬ 
trol  of  the  king,  and  was  a  royal  colony. 


CHAPTER  XXIY. 

AFFAIRS  IN  VIRGINIA. 

Governor  William  Berkeley.  —  “  Thank  God  there  are  no  Free  Schools  in  Virginia !  ”  —  John 
Washington  fights  Maryland  Indians. — Savages  retaliate. — Nathaniel  Bacon  goes  into 
the  Field  without  a  Commission.  —  He  is  declared  Traitor.  —  Great  Excitement  in  James¬ 
town.  —  Attack  on  the  Town.  —  Bacon’s  Death.  —  Berkeley  hangs  the  Rebels.  —  The  King 
calls  him  back  to  England.  —  What  the  King  said  of  Berkeley. 

During  the  troubles  in  Massachusetts  they  were  having  trouble 
in  Virginia  also.  Ever  since  Charles  II.  had  been  made  king  in 
1660,  Sir  William  Berkeley  had  been  governor  there.  He  was  a 
very  strong  royalist,  a  narrow-minded,  tyrannical  man.  I  am  quite 
sure  he  was  narrow-minded,  because  this  is  what  he  said  in  one  of 
his  reports  to  the  English  Council :  “  I  thank  God  there  are  no 
free  schools  and  printing,  and  I  hope  we  shall  not  have  them  these 
hundred  years,  for  learning  has  brought  disobedience,  heresy,  and 
sects  into  this  world,  and  printing  has  divulged  them,  and  libels 
against  the  government.  God  keep  us  from  both.” 

You  can  imagine  from  that  what  sort  of  a  man  Berkeley  was. 
A  regular  pig-headed  old  governor,  I  think.  The  colonies  had 


AFFAIRS  IN  VIRGINIA. 


135 


enjoyed  large  liberties  in  Cromwell’s  reign.  The  colonists  had  been 

(allowed  to  vote,  and  had  managed  their  own  affairs  with  very  little 
appeal  to  England.  All  this  Berkeley  changed.  He  took  away 
their  right  to  vote,  and  made  himself  very  powerful,  so  that  he  was 
almost  a  king  in  the  colony.  He  made  tax-laws  without  consulting 
the  planters,  and  there  was  a  great  deal  of  discontent  felt  about  it. 
The  planters  who  were  scattered  about  at  a  distance  from  James¬ 
town,  which  was  the  capital  of  the  colony,  many  of  them  scolded 
about  Berkeley,  but  they  could  not  do  anything  against  his  tyranny 
without  risking  their  lives  and  their  farms,  and  men  will  generally 
bear  a  great  deal  before  they  will  risk  either. 

One  of  the  members  of  the  governor’s  council,  which  held  its 
meetings  at  Jamestown,  was  Nathaniel  Bacon,  a  man  about  thirty 
years  of  age,  who  had  a  plantation  in  Stafford  County  on  the  Poto¬ 
mac.  He  did  not  like  Berkeley’s  conduct,  and  said  many  sharp 
things  about  it.  And  as  he  was  a  ready  speaker,  brave,  daring,  and 
popular  among  the  colonists,  Berkeley  was  not  favorably  inclined 
toward  him. 

Early  in  1675,  the  year  of  Philip’s  war  in  Massachusetts,  the 
Indians  began  to  trouble  the  Virginians.  The  troubles  began  in 
Maryland,  and  the  Marylanders,  being  weak,  sent  to  ask  help  of 
Virginia.  Colonel  John  Washington  went  out  to  help  them  with  a 
small  company.  This  Colonel  Washington  was  the  ancestor  of 
General  George  Washington,  whom  I  shall  tell  you  much  about 
hereafter.  The  Virginians  foolishly  killed  six  Indian  chiefs,  who 
were  sent  to  treat  for  peace  by  the  Indian  tribes,  and  that  made 
matters  worse.  The  Indians  at  once  killed  sixty  white  men,  saying 
it  took  ten  common  English  soldiers  to  pay  for  one  chief.  After 
that  they  crossed  into  Virginia,  killing  the  settlers,  and  laying 
waste  their  farms.  Each  day  there  were  fresh  accounts  of  some 
horrible  proceeding,  and  the  planters  complained  that  Governor 
Berkeley  took  no  measures  to  protect  them.  Nathaniel  Bacon  sev¬ 
eral  times  asked  permission  of  the  governor  to  go  and  put  down 
the  Indian  warfare,  but  was  peremptorily  refused.  At  this  Bacon 

(grew  hotly  indignant,  and  swore  “  commission  or  no  commission,  the 
next  man  I  hear  of  that  is  killed  by  Indians,  I  will  go  out  against 
the  savages  if  I  can  get  twenty  men  to  follow  me.” 

Now  it  happened  the  next  man  killed  was  the  overseer  on 
Bacon’s  plantation,  to  whom  he  was  very  much  attached.  This 
made  him  furious,  and  he  at  once  gathered  all  the  lighting  men  in 


136 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


the  country  who  would  join  him,  and  went  out  against  the  Indians. 
They  killed  one  hundred  and  fifty,  with  a  loss  of  three  of  their  own 
men,  and  then  Bacon  returned  home  to  find  that  he  had  again  been 
elected  one  of  the  assembly  to  meet  in  Jamestown. 

Before  he  arrived  in  Jamestown,  he  learned  that  Berkeley  had 
sent  an  armed  boat  to  take  him  prisoner,  and  that  he  was  declared 
a  rebel  all  over  the  town.  He  was  seized,  carried  before  the  gov¬ 
ernor,  and  made  to  give  his  word  of  honor  that  he  would  not  do  so 
again.  He  gave  his  word,  and  the  next  day  he  came  before  the  as¬ 
sembly,  and  asked  pardon  of  the  governor  for  what  he  had  done. 
He  had  a  rich  uncle  in  the  colony,  whose  heir  expectant  and  name¬ 
sake  he  was,  and  it  was  said  that  he  had  urged  him  so  strongly  to 
make  peace  with  Berkeley,  and  make  this  confession,  that  the  young 
man  had  unwillingly  given  in. 

Berkeley  now  made  all  sorts  of  fair  promises,  and  said  he  would 
give  Bacon  a  proper  commission  to  fight  the  Indians.  But  Bacon 
was  warned  that  the  governor  meant  to  play  false  with  him,  and 
went  up  the  James  River,  away  from  the  town. 

The  governor  then  summoned  the  men  of  the  country  to  arm, 
and  defend  Jamestown,  which  he  feared  Bacon  was  going  to  attack. 
In  three  or  four  days  Bacon  appeared  with  about  five  hundred  men, 
marching  into  Jamestown,  threatening  the  governor  (who  he  said 
had  always  deceived  him),  and  demanding  his  commission  to  fight 
the  Indians. 

There  was  a  terrible  hubbub  in  the  town.  Bacon's  troops  shouted, 
the  governors  friends  were  frightened,  and  the  governor  appeared 
at  a  window,  and  tearing  open  his  breast  in  high  Roman  fashion, 
cried,  “  Shoot  me  !  here,  shoot !  here  is  a  fair  mark  !  ” 

At  length  the  governor  again  agreed  that  Bacon  should  have  the 
commission,  and  he  went  off  with  it  in  triumph.  No  sooner  was 
his  back  turned,  than  Berkeley  again  proclaimed  him  a  rebel  and 
began  to  raise  troops  to  follow  and  suppress  him. 

This  again  fired  Bacon’s  anger.  He  came  back  with  his  men  as 
fast  as  he  could  gallop,  and  attacked  Jamestown  in  good  earnest. 
He  had  two  influential  friends  in  town,  Mr.  Lawrence  and  Mr. 
Drummond,  who  helped  him  all  they  could.  After  a  short  fight  he 
took  the  town,  and  burned  it,  houses,  churches,  and  all.  Mr.  Law¬ 
rence  and  Mr.  Drummond  owned  the  two  best  houses  in  town,  ex¬ 
cept  the  governor’s,  and  each  applied  the  flames  to  his  own  house. 
Most  of  the  town  was  thus  laid  in  ashes. 


AFFAIRS  IN  NEW  YORK  AND  MASSACHUSETTS. 


137 


Then  Bacon  called  a  convention  and  an  assembly  of  his  own,  and 
as  he  was  popular  with  a  large  number  of  the  people,  perhaps  might 
have  made  himself  governor,  if  he  had  not  been  taken  ill,  from  ex¬ 
posure  in  the  marsh  around  Jamestown,  and  died  suddenly.  After 
this  Berkeley  published  a  proclamation,  pardoning  all  who  would 
come  back  and  submit  to  his  authority,  except  a  few  of  the  most 
noted  rebels.  As  they  had  now  no  leader,  and  no  plan  of  resist¬ 
ance,  the  insurgents  laid  down  their  arms,  and  went  home.  When 
quiet  was  restored,  Berkeley  began  to  hang  all  those  whom  he  had 
exempted  from  pardon.  He  put  several  of  the  assembly  to  death, 
and  many  honest  persons  who  had  really  meant  and  done  no  harm, 
till  the  colonists  petitioned  him  to  hang  no  more.  How  long  he 
would  have  continued  this  wholesale  hanging,  if  Charles  II.  had 
not  called  him  back  to  England,  I  do  not  know.  When  the  king 
heard  of  the  affair  he  said,  “  That*  old  fool  has  hanged  more  men 
in  that  naked  country,  than  I  have  for  the  murder  of  my  father.” 

Berkeley  died  soon  after  in  England,  and  Virginia  had  a  new 
governor  named  Jeffreys.  The  Indians  do  not  seem  to  have  troub¬ 
led  them  any  more  at  this  time,  and  thus  ended  the  most  notable 
disturbance  which  ever  took  place  in  the  Virginia  colony,  which  is 
known  in  history  as  Bacon  s  rebellion. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

AFFAIRS  IN  NEW  YORK  AND  MASSACHUSETTS. 

England  and  Holland  at  War.  —  The  Dutch  take  New  York  City  again.  —  Edmund  Andros  in 
Boston. — His  Tyrannies  there.  —  His  Journey  to  Connecticut.  —  Disappearance  of  the 
Charter.  — The  New  English  King.  —  Uprising  in  New  York.  —  Leisler  executed.  —  Char¬ 
ter  Oak. 


After  Bacon’s  rebellion,  Virginia  remained  quiet  and  prosper¬ 
ous  for  many  years.  While  we  leave  her  to  raise  tobacco,  and  cul¬ 
tivate  her  plantations  by  the  help  of  her  increasing  negro  slaves, 
we  must  look  at  New  York,  and  see  how  she  is  prospering.  You 
remember,  the  last  account  we  had  of  this  colony,  Charles  II.  had 
given  her  to  his  younger  brother,  the  Duke  of  York,  from  whom  the 
State  took  its  present  name.  This  Duke  of  York,  whose  name  was 
James  Stuart,  had  made  Richard  Nichols  governor,  after  the  colony 
was  conquered  by  the  English  and  surrendered  by  sturdy  Peter 


138 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


Stuyvesant,  the  last  Dutch  ruler.  After  Nichols  had  remained  in 
office  three  or  four  years,  he  went  to  England,  leaving  the  colony 
prosperous,  and  the  duke  sent  a  gentleman  bearing  the  romantic 
name  of  Francis  Lovelace,  as  his  representative  in  New  York. 

About  this  time  war  broke  out  between  England  and  Holland. 
While  Charles  TI.  was  wasting  the  money  of  his  poor  people,  and 
behaving  like  an  idle  vagabond  who  has  no  object  in  life  but  his 
own  amusement,  the  plucky  little  state  of  Holland  came  near  con¬ 
quering  England.  One  of  the  Dutch  admirals  sailed  up  the  River 
Thames,  frightening  the  London  people  nearly  out  of  their  wits,  and 
almost  succeeding  in  making  Charles  serious  for  a  few  days.  Hol¬ 
land  gave  instructions  to  one  portion  of  her  fleet  to  go  over  to 
America  and  recover  her  lost  possessions  there.  Early  in  1673 
they  came  over,  and  after  very  little  trouble  took  New  York  into 
their  own  hands,  and  renamed  it  New  Amsterdam.  They  did  not 
keep  it  long,  however.  In  sixteen  months  the  countries  across  the 
ocean  made  peace  with  each  other,  and  Holland  gave  New  York 
back  to  its  duke.  From  that  time  it  remained  a  colony  of  England. 

When  Charles  II.  died,  his  brother  James  became  king.  Of  all 
the  Stuarts,  he  seems  the  weakest  and  most  unfit  to  be  king.  He 
had  sent  during  his  dukeship  a  very  tyrannical  governor  to  New 
York,  Sir  Edmund  Andros,  and  after  his  accession  to  the  throne, 
he  transferred  him  to  Massachusetts. 

Never  was  a  man  more  heartily  hated  than  Sir  Edmund  Andros 
by  the  people  of  Massachusetts.  He  brought  over  in  his  train  to 
Boston  some  companies  of  British  soldiers.  These  were  the  first 
English  soldiers  in  the  colony,  and  were  looked  on  with  great  dis¬ 
favor  by  the  people,  who  had  got  so  accustomed  to  taking  care  of 
themselves,  that  they  were  very  much  afraid  of  any  military  inter¬ 
ference. 

But  what  most  outraged  the  Puritans  of  Boston,  was  the  fact  that 
Andros  put  an  English  clergyman  in  their  “  South  Meeting-house,” 
and  bade  him  read  there  the  service  of  the  Church  of  England. 
The  Puritans  hated  surpliced  priests,  and  litanies,  and  all  ceremonial 
worships  as  much  as  ever.  They  would  not  even  have  a  cross  on 
their  meeting-houses,  because  it  reminded  them  of  the  Church  of 
Rome.  And  now,  to  have  a  clergyman  in  long  robes  reading  a 
litany  out  of  book  in  their  own  pulpit,  was  too  much  to  be  borne. 
The  sexton  refused  to  ring  the  church  bell  to  call  the  worshipers 
together,  and  all  the  owners  of  the  meeting-house  were  in  great  in¬ 
dignation. 


AFFAIRS  IN  NEW  YORK  AND  MASSACHUSETTS. 


139 


But  Andros  did  something  worse  than  appropriating  their  church¬ 
building  to  his  own  uses.  He  made  an  attack  on  the  liberties  of 
the  people,  and  sought  to  take  away  the  charters,  which  the  people 
guarded  as  the  very  ark  and  covenant  of  their  freedom. 

The  charters  of  Massachusetts,  Connecticut,  and  Rhode  Island 
were  all  very  liberal,  and  gave  the  people  large  powers.  They  had 
been  given  by  King  Charles  at  a  time  when  he  probably  regarded 
the  colonies  as  not  of  much  consequence,  and  a  little  freedom  more 
or  less  as  a  thing  not  material  to  English  rule  in  America.  These 
charters  Andros  pronounced  void  ;  the  people  were  forbidden  to  as¬ 
semble  in  town  meeting  to  elect  their  officers  as  they  had  been  wont 
to  do ;  they  were  heavily  and  unjustly  taxed ;  their  citizens  were 
arrested  for  acts  which  their  charter  pronounced  legal ;  in  short,  all 
the  indignities  that  a  narrow  tyrant  could  heap  upon  a  people,  Sir 
Edmund  Andros  heaped  upon  the  colony  he  was  sent  to  govern. 

After  establishing  as  firmly  as  he  might  his  system  of  tyranny  in 
Massachusetts,  he  made  a  visit  to  Connecticut,  designing  to  take 
away  her  charter  and  repeal  all  the  laws  which  gave  freedom  of 
action  to  the  people.  Arriving  in  Hartford,  where  that  sacred 
document  of  the  liberties  of  the  colony  was  carefully  guarded,  he 
called  a  meeting  in  the  court-house.  The  strong  box  containing 
the  charter  was  placed  upon  the  table  in  the  midst  of  the  assembly. 
Then  the  officers  of  the  colony  began  a  long  argument  with  Sir 
Edmund  Andros  and  his  party,  until  it  grew  so  dark  that  candles 
were  lighted  in  the  apartment.  Suddenly  all  the  candles  were  put 
out.  It  was  pitchy  dark  for  a  few  minutes,  and  when  the  con¬ 
fusion  was  over  and  lights  were  brought  in,  the  box  with  the  char¬ 
ter  had  disappeared,  nobody  knew  where.  Sir  Edmund  Andros 
had  to  go  back  without  it  and  to  content  himself  with  telling  the 
people  that  the  rights  it  gave  them  were  good  for  nothing,  and 
they  had  no  rights  at  all  except  the  very  few  he  and  King  James 
chose  to  grant  them. 

By  this  time  the  people  of  England  were  getting  as  tired  of 
James  II.  as  the  Massachusetts  people  were  of  Andros.  For  one 
thing  he  was  a  bigoted  Romanist,  and  all  the  English  people  now 
were  firmly  Protestant.  They  resolved  to  dethrone  James,  and  sent 
to  William  of  Orange,  who  had  married  the  Princess  Mary,  eldest 
daughter  of  James,  to  come  and  be  their  ruler.  It  was  agreed  that 
this  husband  and  wife  should  govern  England  as  joint  sovereigns, 
and  their  reign  is  called  “  the  reign  of  William  and  Mary.” 


140 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


As  soon  as  the  Massachusetts  people  heard  of  James’s  removal 
from  the  throne,  they  resolved  they  would  not  endure  Andros  any 
longer.  One  morning  in  April  the  Boston  people  rose  as  one  man, 
beat  their  drums,  and  set  up  a  flag  on  Beacon  Hill.  Then  they  took 
the  governor  and  his  men  prisoners.  Andros  tried  to  escape  by 
dressing  up  in  woman’s  clothes,  and  had  got  past  two  of  his  guards, 
when  the  next  one  caught  sight  of  his  shoes,  saw  that  they  were  not 
a  lady’s  shoes,  and  so  stopped  his  escape. 

He  was  sent  back  to  England,  and  although  nothing  was  done  to 
punish  the  colonies  for  his  arrest,  no  steps  were  taken  against  him. 
Indeed,  he  was  afterwards  made  governor  of  Virginia,  but  behaved 
better  there,  and  gave  the  colonists  no  great  alarm  by  his  onslaughts 
on  their  liberties. 

Governor  Dongan  of  New  York  (one  of  King  James’s  governors) 
was  a  mild  ruler  and  not  unjust  to  the  people.  But  the  Protestants 
there  did  not  like  him  because  he  was  a  Catholic.  When  the  news 
reached  New  York  that  William  of  Orange  was  king,  there  was  an 
insurrection  of  the  New  York  people,  headed  by  Jacob  Leisler.  He 
took  possession  of  the  fort,  and  then  sent  word  to  England  that  he 
was  holding  the  government  against  the  Catholics  for  William  and 
Mary.  In  the  mean  time,  the  king  had  sent  Colonel  Henry 
Sloughter  to  govern  New  York.  When  he  arrived  he  ai’rested  Leis¬ 
ler  for  treason. 

Leisler  had  many  enemies,  and  they  put  the  worst  color  upon  his 
acts,  so  that  after  a  trial,  he  with  his  son  in-law,  Jacob  Milbourne, 
were  sentenced  to  die.  They  met  death  bravely,  saying  they  had 
meant  no  treason,  but  had  simply  defended  the  rights  of  Protestant¬ 
ism  and  the  new  king  and  queen.  This  was  the  only  blood  shed  in 
the  colonies  on  the  new  change  of  government,  and  was  the  only 
cloud  on  the  bright  prospects  of  the  new  reign. 

Are  you  wondering  meanwhile  what  became  of  the  Connecticut 
charter,  which  disappeared  so  suddenly  from  under  the  nose  of  Sir 
Edmund  Andros?  A  certain  Captain  Wadsworth  had  seized  it  in 
the  dark,  and  hidden  it  in  a  hollow  place  in  an  oak-tree  just  outside 
the  court-house.  There  it  stayed  till  William  and  Mary  were  pro¬ 
claimed  sovereigns  of  England,  when  it  was  taken  out  with  great 
rejoicing.  The  old  oak  was  always  called  the  “  Charter  Oak  ”  and 
remained  green  till  1856,  when  a  storm  blew  it  down. 

And  amid  great  rejoicing  all  over  New  England  at  the  recovery 
of  their  liberties  and  the  restoration  of  a  Protestant  monarch  to  the 
throne  of  England,  the  reign  of  William  and  Mary  began. 


SALEM  WITCHCRAFT. 


141 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 


SALEM  WITCHCRAFT. 


Belief  in  Witches. — Causes  for  this  Belief.  —  The  Idea  of  the  Devil. — Study  of  Necro¬ 
mancy.  —  Two  Children  “  bewitched.”  —  Arrest  of  Friendless  Old  Women.  —  Babies  chained 
and  thrown  into  Prison  as  Witches. —  Torture  of  Witches.  —  Confessions. — Hanging  of 
Women.  —  Witches’  Hill.  —  End  of  the  Witchcraft  Madness. 

Shortly  after  Sir  Edmund  Andros  was  deposed,  and  while  the 
colony  was  under  little  or  no  government  but  that  of  the  local  au¬ 
thorities  of  Massachusetts,  one  of  the  worst  events  took  place  ever 
recorded  in  the  annals  of  the  American  colonies.  It  is  known  as 
the  Salem  Witchcraft. 

Of  course  you  understand  that  there  are  no  such  things  as 
witches  ;  that  there  never  have  been  and  never  can  be.  But  in  the 
days  of  which  I  write,  a  large  number  of  people,  whom  we  should 
think  ought  to  have  known  better,  believed  in  witchcraft.  They 
believed  that  witches  were  a  class  of  persons  who  had  made  a  league 
with  the  devil  to  be  his  servants  and  children,  and  in  return  got 
power  from  him  to  do  evil  deeds  and  torment  innocent  people.  In 
Europe,  this  belief  was  almost  universal,  and  men  and  women  had 
been  not  unfrequently  burned,  hanged,  and  tortured  for  witchcraft. 
King  Janies  I.  of  England,  a  stupid,  narrow-minded  old  bigot,  had 
believed  in  witches,  and  caused  some  to  be  hung  in  his  day.  Sev¬ 
eral  times  in  the  colonies  there  had  been  a  brief  excitement  of  this 
kind,  and  in  many  places  some  poor  withered  old  woman,  who  lived 
by  herself,  was  looked  on  with  suspicion  as  a  witch.  But  nothing 
in  this  country,  and  few  things  abroad,  equaled  the  madness  on  the 
subject  that  prevailed  in  Salem  in  the  year  1692. 

We  must  take  into  consideration  the  fact  that  Salem  was  a  pecul¬ 
iar  colony.  Its  chief  and  founder  was  John  Endicott,  who  was  a 
stern,  gloomy,  fanatical  man;  naturally  the  colony  fostered  by  him 
had  something  of  his  spirit  impressed  upon  it,  —  the  spirit  that  had 
driven  the  good  Roger  Williams  out  into  the  wilderness.  Salem, 
like  most  of  the  New  England  towns,  was  stanch  in  the  idea  that 
amusement  or  recreation  must  form  a  very  small  part  in  life.  Re¬ 
ligion — a  hard,  sombre  kind  of  religion  we  should  think  it  to-day  — 
was  the  first  thing  in  life ;  and  work  was  the  next  thing.  To  dance, 
or  play  games,  laugh  gayly,  sing  much  except  psalm  tunes  in  minor 
keys,  were  to  them  “  ungodly  customs.”  The  severe  colonists  of 


142 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


Massachusetts  had  once  gone  miles  out  of  their  way  to  cut  down  a 
May-pole  wreathed  with  flowers,  which,  according  to  the  custom  in 
“  Merry  Old  England,”  some  people  had  erected  to  dance  around 
on  the  first  day  of  May.  To  them  such  practices  were  “  profane, 
and  unbefitting  God’s  people.”  All  the  light  and  color  and  bright¬ 
ness  with  which  God  has  adorned  the  earth  did  not  appeal  to  those 
hard  Puritans.  In  short,  these  people  were  just,  sternly  honest, 
conscientious,  ready  to  die  for  the  sake  of  duty,  but  they  completely 
turned  their  backs  on  one  side  of  life.  They  did  not  recognize  the 
fact  that  all  work  and  no  play  not  only  makes  Jack  a  dull  boy,  but 
that  in  the  end  it  makes  him  worse  than  dull,  it  often  makes  him 
mad,  and  drives  him  even  into  terrible  and  unexpected  crimes. 
Such  a  social  system  as  theirs  was  sure  to  have  some  such  an  out¬ 
break  as  it  did  in  the  serious  town  of  Salem,  and  it  was  very  well, 
to  my  thinking  that  it  was  not  even  worse  and  more  wide-spread 
than  it  proved. 

In  the  minds  of  these  people  the  devil  was  a  very  important  per¬ 
sonage  who  had  great  powers  and  was*  very  real.  In  their  imagina¬ 
tions  he  had  a  long  tail,  a  pair  of  horns,  and  hoofs  like  an  animal. 
He  could  take  all  sorts  of  shapes,  the  most  usual  being  that  of  a 
black  man,  or  a  black  cat.  Sometimes,  however,  he  might  be  a  pig, 
or  even  a  spider,  or  flea.  You  have  perhaps  read  similar  stories  of 
transformation  in  the  “  Arabian  Nights.”  The  queerest  part  of  it 
was  that  learned  men,  not  only  in  America  but  all  over  Europe,  be¬ 
lieved  these  old  nurse’s  tales. 

In  such  a  state  of  belief  as  this  a  company  of  young  girls,  who 
had  no  wholesome  girlish  amusements  to  fill  up  their  evenings, 
met  together  at  the  house  of  the  village  minister  to  study  what  was 
called  “  necromancy,  or  the  black  art  of  magic.”  The  oldest  of  these 
was  not  more  than  twenty  years,  the  youngest  only  nine.  Two  or 
three  young  married  women  afterwards  became  interested  in  their 
proceedings,  and  two  slaves  from  the  West  Indies,  who  were  Indians 
with  a  mixture  of  African  blood  in  their  savage  veins,  met  also  with 
them.  No  doubt  these  ignorant  slaves,  full  of  the  wild  superstitions 
of  their  savage  estate,  put  many  ideas  in  these  children’s  heads. 
They  had  also  a  few  old  books  on  “magic”  or  the  “black  art” 
over  which  they  pored  in  their  secret  conclaves.  What  they  did 
at  their  meetings  is  not  known.  It  is  not  impossible  that  they 
may  have  had  exhibitions  of  some  phenomena  not  unlike  “  modern 
spiritualism.”  But  whatever  they  did,  the  worst  sort  of  excitement 


SALEM  WITCHCRAFT. 


143 


arose  from  it.  All  at  once  these  girls  began  to  have  strange  fits,  to 
utter  loud  outcries,  and  be  twisted  in  wonderful  contortions,  declarr 
ing  that  they  were  bewitched. 

If  they  had  been  left  unnoticed,  or  their  meetings  broken  up,  and 
they  had  been  sharply  reasoned  with  about  their  absurd  conduct,  it 
would  probably  have  stopped  at  once.  But  the  minister’s  daughter 
and  niece,  two  girls  eleven  and  nine  years  old,  were  among  the 
number,  and  their  conduct  attracted  his  notice.  Of  course  he  be¬ 
lieved  in  witchcraft,  and  was  at  once  on  the  alert  to  hunt  out 
witches.  The  girls  accused  a  poor,  feeble  woman,  with  no  worse 
crime  than  that  of  old  age,  as  the  cause  of  their  convulsions,  and  she 
was  at  once  taken  up  and  thrown  into  prison.  From  that  time  the 
madness  steadily  increased  till  it  reached  its  height.  Soon  another 
old  woman,  then  another,  was  arrested.  The  victims  were  brought 
before  their  accusers,  who  straightway  went  into  terrible  convulsions 
at  the  first  look  of  the  witch’s  eyes,  from  which  they  were  only  re¬ 
covered  when  the  poor  trembling  old  creature  was  loaded  with 
chains  and  thrown  into  prison. 

At  first  only  old  women,  poor  and  friendless,  were  accused,  but 
by  and  by  young  women,  men,  mothers  with  children,  even  little 
children  of  tender  years,  fell  victims.  At  one  time  a  woman  and 
her  five-year-old  child  both  lay  chained  in  Salem  jail,  awaiting  trial 
for  witchcraft.  A  little  girl  of  eight  was  examined  by  a  council  of 
reverend  men  and  frightened  into  saying  that  she  was  a  witch,  “  her 
mother  had  taught  her  to  be  one.”  A  widow  with  four  children, 
the  youngest  an  infant,  was  torn  from  her  family,  dragged  from  her 
house,  her  babies  following  and  crying  piteously  for  their  mother. 
If  the  neighbors  had  not  been  tender-hearted  enough  to  succor 
these  children  they  might  have  starved,  and  it  required  some  cour¬ 
age  to  succor  the  children  of  those  accused  of  witchcraft. 

When  the  “  witches  ”  were  brought  to  trial,  they  were  urged  to 
confess  their  wicked  practices.  If  they  denied  all  guilt,  they  were 
confronted  with  their  accusers,  who  were  seized  with  convulsions 
at  the  sight  of  them,  and  who  cried  out  upon  them  as  having  on 
such  a  night  come  to  them  to  persuade  them  also  to  become  fol¬ 
lowers  of  Satan.  The  prisoners  were  baited  with  questions,  urged 
to  confess,  and  sometimes  in  case  of  refusal  were  put  to  torture. 
Some  were  tied  by  the  neck  and  heels,  and  hung  up  till  the  blood 
gushed  from  their  nostrils  ;  they  were  probed  with  pins,  till  a  cal¬ 
lous  place  insensible  to  pin-prick  was  found  on  them,  when  it  Was 


144 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


said,  “  this  was  the  devil’s  mark  which  he  had  set  on  his  chil¬ 
dren.”  They  did  all  sorts  of  cruel  things  that  the  inhumanity  of 
the  time  could  devise,  till  one  old  man,  who  had  probably  heard  of 
the  persecutions  of  Bloody  Mary’s  time,  said  simply,  “  It  seemeth 
me  these  are  very  like  Popish  cruelties  ;  ”  and  another  colonist, 
speaking  of  the  examinations  of  the  witches,  said,  “  They  had  trials 
of  cruel  mockings,  which  is  the  more  strange,  considering  what  a 
people  for  religion  (I  mean  for  profession  of  it)  we  have  been.” 

Sometimes  the  accused  people,  amazed  at  what  they  saw,  badgered 
and  baited  by  unfeeling  judges,  began  to  think  they  must  be  witches 
without  knowing  it.  Their  accusers  urged  them  to  confess  that  on 
such  a  night  they  had  appeared  in  the  shape  of  cats,  or  other  ani¬ 
mals,  or  in  their  own  human  form,  and  tempted  such  a  girl  or 
woman  to  sign  her  name  in  a  red  book,  “the  devil’s  book.”  Hear¬ 
ing  such  strange  accusations,  urged  with  minute  descriptions  of 
their  words  and  actions,  while  engaged  in  their  unlawful  practices, 
is  it  any  wonder  the  victims  almost  lost  reason,  and  sometimes  con¬ 
fessed  to  crimes  of  which  they  had  never  dreamed  ?  Of  these,  most 
took  back  their  confessions,  saying  they  had  made  them  through 
fear,  or  from  hope  of  mercy.  But  to  their  honor,  be  it  said,  most  of 
the  accused  stood  firm,  and  denied  all  these  charges  laid  to  them. 
They  were  largely  intelligent  and  pious  people,  many  of  them  dis¬ 
believing  witchcraft  altogether,  and  they  showed  a  courage  and 
steadfast  heroism  that  would  grace  the  annals  of  Christian  martyr¬ 
dom.  One  woman  over  eighty,  hanged  in  Salem  for  witchcraft, 
died  such  a  sublime  death,  so  patient  and  heroic,  praying  tenderly 
for  her  misguided  persecutors,  that  her  story  thrills  the  blood  of 
him  who  reads  it  even  to  this  day. 

Day  after  day  these  girls  grew  bolder  in  their  wicked  madness, 
and  Christian  ministers  who  aided  on  the  frenzy  by  their  exciting 
sermons,  preached  more  ardently  that  the  town  must  be  cleared  of 
all  witches.  A  saintly  clergyman,  named  George  Burroughs,  once 
settled  in  Salem,  was  accused  of  witchcraft  and  murder.  The  ghosts 
of  his  victims  appeared  to  one  of  these  “possessed”  children,  and 
revealed  that  he  had  murdered  his  two  wives  and  many  other  per¬ 
sons.  On  which  the  minister  was  sentenced  to  be  hanged,  which  sen  ¬ 
tence  was  presently  carried  out.  He  died  a  holy  death,  with  the 
Lord’s  Prayer  on  his  lips.  His  body  was  taken  down,  disgracefully 
handled,  and  thrust  half  buried  into  the  ground. 

And  now  accusations  of  murder  were  made  by  wholesale.  Ghosts 


SALEM  WITCHCRAFT. 


145 


appeared  by  night  and  day,  who  had  been  sleeping  quietly  for 
twenty  years.  If  you  could  believe  these  crazy  girls  of  Salem,  half 
the  population  of  the  town  were  murderers,  and  most  of  the  dead 
for  twenty  years  were  put  out  of  life  by  violent  means. 

The  hanging  of  the  witches  began  vigorously.  One  morning  in 
September,  eight  bodies  hung  dangling  from  one  broad  gallows  on 
“Witches’  Hill,”  and  Mr.  Noyes,  a  preacher  of  Christ’s  gospel,  who 
was  foremost  in  their  persecution,  said,  as  he  looked  on  approvingly, 
“  See  those  eight  fire-brands  of  hell  hanging  there.” 

But  this  could  not  go  on  forever.  The  crazy  zeal  of  those  who 
begun  the  excitement  went  too  far.  Thev  fell  into  the  habit  of 

O  ^ 

accusing  all  who  denied  the  belief  in  witches,  or  showed  sympathy 
for  the  prisoners.  Their  frenzy  struck  too  high.  In  their  wild 
ravings  they  accused  Mrs.  Pliips  (wife  of  Sir  William  Phips,  the 
governor),  who  had  entreated  mercy  for  some  of  the  accused  ;  they 
cried  out  upon  the  wife  of  one  of  the  magistrates  who  had  been  luke¬ 
warm  in  convicting  witches ;  they  uttered  the  name  of  Mrs.  Hale, 
wife  of  an  eminent  divine  in  Beverly,  who  was  known  to  have 
given  aid  to  accused  persons.  These  were  names  too  high  for  evil 
repute,  and  the  men  who  were  calling  for  the  blood  of  the  witches, 
began  to  look  about,  and  ask  where  this  would  stop.  In  this  pause, 
better  judgment  came  in  ;  reason  returned  to  her  throne ;  the  com¬ 
mon  sense  of  these  usually  clear-headed  Puritans  asserted  itself,  and 
the  tide  of  madness  turned  back.  But  not  till  twelve  good,  inno¬ 
cent  people  had  suffered  a  vile  and  horrible  death  ;  not  till  an  old 
man,  over  eighty,  had  been  slowly  pressed  to  death  by  heavy  stones 
placed  on  his  chest ;  not  until  hundreds  had  been  torn  from  homes 
and  families,  and  suffered  from  chains  and  imprisonment  for  months. 
In  prison,  many  had  died  ;  some  lived  with  shattered  reason  ;  the 
homes  of  some  were  broken  up  ;  their  goods  sold  ;  and  even  after 
they  were  pronounced  innocent,  some  were  kept  months  in  prison 
for  want  of  money  to  pay  their  board  while  in  jail,  and  when  liber¬ 
ated  were  set  adrift  homeless  and  penniless.  In  the  history  of  tin; 
century,  I  know  of  no  fouler  blot  on  civilization  than  this  of  Salem 
Witchcraft. 

As  out  of  all  evil  may  come  some  good,  this  had  its  good  results. 
It  was  the  last  of  witchcraft  in  the  country.  A  faint  attempt  at 
such  an  excitement  in  New  Hampshire,  a  few  years  later,  was 
promptly  checked.  It  set  the  people  to  thinking,  and  made  them 
skeptical  about  such  monstrous  beliefs.  It  started  a  healthy  reaction 

10 


146 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


on  that  very  spot.  And  to-day  Salem,  Massachusetts,  stands  a 
centre  of  science  and  intelligence,  hardly  second  to  any  in  America, 
a  school  of  all  the  liberal  and  broad  humanities  which  will  tolerate 
no  such  cruel  madness  as  this  of  which  we  have  just  read. 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 

INTE R-C'( ) LONIAL  WARS. 

War  between  French  and  English  Colonies. — The  French  League  with  Indians.  —  Horrors  of 

Indian  Warfare.  —  Story  of  Hannah  Dustin.  —  Bravery  of  the  Women.  —  Towns  destroyed. 

—  Peace  declared. —  Another  War.  — Peace  of  Utrecht.  — George’s  War.  — Peace  of  Aix- 

la-Chapelle. 

The  most  unfortunate  affair  that  resulted  from  the  accession  of 
William  and  Mary  was  a  war  with  France.  On  being  driven  from 
the  throne  by  his  people,  James  II.  fled  to  France,  and  enlisted  the 
interest  of  the  French  king  to  such  a  degree  that  he  went  to  war 
with  England  for  the  purpose  of  restoring  James  to  his  kingdom. 
After  France  declared  war  upon  England,  the  French  colonies  here 
went  to  war  with  the  English  colonies.  Of  course  if  the  “  mother 
countries”  over  the  water  were  fighting,  their  children  must  fight 
also. 

The  French  got  the  Indian  tribes  in  Eastern  Canada,  and  in 
Maine  and  New  Hampshire,  to  help  them.  This  gave  them  a  great 
advantage.  The  French  leaders  were  skillful  warriors,  but  did  not 
know  the  country  as  well  as  the  savages  did  ;  their  Indian  allies 
knew  the  safest  paths  through  the  forest,  the  best  way  to  fall  upon 
and  attack  an  unsuspecting  village,  and  all  the  modes  of  warfare 
best  adapted  to  a  wild  country.  The  principal  French  leader  in 
this  war  was  Count  Frontenac,  who  was  sent  across  the  water  to 
command  the  French  army.  This  war  between  the  colonies 'lasted 
about  eight  years,  till  1697,  when  peace  was  declared  between 
France  and  England. 

You  have  heard  something  of  the  barbarities  of  Indian  warfare. 
In  this  war  they  were  revived  in  more  than  their  usual  horror. 
Whole  towns  were  ravaged,  farm-house  after  farm-house  entered, 
the  inmates  slain  or  taken  prisoners,  and  then  the  fire-brand  applied. 
The  war  raged  principally  on  the  northern  boundary  of  the  English 
colonies  ;  and  in  New  York  and  New  England  particularly,  the  peo- 


INTEK-COLONlAL  WA&S.  147 

pie  lived  in  constant  dread  of  their  terrible  foes.  Even  the  women 
learned  to  handle  a  musket,  and  defend  homes  and  children.  The 
suffering  endured  by  the  women  captured  by  the  savages  is  one  of 
the  notable  features  of  this  war. 

Just  before  the  end  of  the  war  a  band  of  Indians  attacked  the 
town  of  Haverhill,  Massachusetts,  and  made  terrible  havoc  there. 
On  leaving,  they  took  Mrs.  Hannah  Dustin  prisoner,  with  her  nurse 
and  her  little  babe  only  one  week  old.  The  baby  cried  as  they 


Indian  Attack. 

were  marching  out  of  town,  and  one  of  the  Indians  took  it  from  the 
mother  and  killed  it  before  her  eyes.  Then  they  marched  through 
the  woods  for  days  and  days,  until  they  came  to  an  island  in  the 
Merrimac  River,  near  Concord,  New  Hampshire.  Here  Mrs.  Dustin 
was  placed  in  a  wigwam  with  two  Indian  men,  three  squaws,  and 
seven  children.  The  Indians  had  a  white  boy  in  their  service  who 
had  been  taken  prisoner  in  Massachusetts  the  year  before.  This 
boy  had  learned  to  talk  with  the  Indians,  and  Mrs.  Dustin  formbd 


148 


STORY  OK  OUR  COUNTRY. 


a,  plan  of  escape  in  which  she  was  aided  by  his  knowledge  of  their 
tongue.  She  secretly  instructed  the  boy  to  ask  his  savage  master 
how  to  strike  a  blow  which  would  kill  instantly.  The  Indian  unsus¬ 
pectingly  showed  the  boy  how  to  deal  a  fatal  blow.  One  night 
when  all  the  savages  were  asleep  Mrs.  Dustin  aroused  her  two  white 
companions,  and  one  after  the  other  they  killed  ten  of  their  captors. 
A  baby  and  one  of  the  women  she  left  unharmed.  Then  following 
the  course  of  the  Merrimac  River,  on  which  her  home  was  situated, 
she  reached  the  town  of  Haverhill  safely,  and  was  welcomed  with 
great  joy  by  her  husband  and  seven  children  who  supposed  her  dead 
or  sold  into  slavery. 

The  deeds  of  brave  women,  who  rivaled  the  men  in  endurance 
and  courage,  would  fill  a  volume.  One  heroic  woman  took  charge 
of  a  fort  and  defended  it  successfully  against  the  enemy,  although  it 
was  on  the  frontier  and  subject  to  many  attacks.  They  knew  if 
they  were  taken  what  a  terrible  fate  would  be  theirs.  If  the  Indians 
did  not  kill  them,  they  drove  them  by  long,  hard  marches  through 
the  wilderness  till  they  reached  some  French  settlement  in  Canada, 
and  there  sold  these  free-born  English  men,  women,  and  children, 
as  slaves  to  the  French  colonists. 

During  “  King  William’s  War,”  as  this  long  conflict  was  called, 
many  towns  were  destroyed.  Schenectady  in  New  York,  Salmon 
Falls  in  New  Hampshire,  Haverhill  in  Massachusetts,  were  all  rav¬ 
aged  and  burned.  Sir  William  Phips,  a  native  of  New  England, 
led  the  English  troops  to  Port  Royal  and  was  successful  in  taking  it. 
Colonel  Church,  who  had  been  in  King  Philip’s  War,  also  did  good 
service  at  this  time.  When  at  length  the  English  and  French  made 
peace,  great  harm  had  been  done  on  both  sides.  Indeed,  war  very 
rarely  does  any  good.  You  will  see  that  more  and  more  as  you  read 
history,  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  as  the  world  grows  more  civilized 
we  shall  get  rid  of  it  altogether. 

Peace  lasted  about  five  years,  and  then  England  and  France  went 
to  fighting  again.  William  and  Mary  were  both  dead,  and  Anne, 
Mary’s  youngest  sister,  was  queen.  “  Queen  Anne’s  War”  was  very 
much  such  a  war  as  the  preceding.  The  Indians  were  again  en¬ 
listed  on  the  French  side,  and  the  same  horrible  scenes  were  re-en¬ 
acted.  The  English  also  endeavored  to  join  the  Indians  with  them, 
and  in  some  cases  enlisted  the  tribes  in  New  York,  but  they  were 
much  more  inclined  to  be  the  allies  of  the  French.  The  French 
missionaries  had  been  working  many  years  to  convert  the  savages, 


INTER-COLONIAL  WARS. 


149 


with  much  better  success  than  had  been  gained  by  the  English  Puri¬ 
tans.  A  great  many  Indians  had  joined  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
and  attached  themselves  to  the  religion  of  their  French  teachers. 
The  English  asserted  that  the  French  leaders  made  use  of  their  re¬ 
ligious  feeling,  and  told  them  that  they  were  fighting  for  God  when 
they  were  killing  the  English.  I  do  not  know  if  this  were  true,  but 
the  English  colonists  believed  it,  and  all  through  New  England  they 
passed  more  severe  laws  against  Roman  Catholics  than  they  had 
done  before,  and  hatred  of  the  “Jesuits,”  as  they  called  all  priests  of 
that  religion,  was  more  intense  than  ever.  King  William’s  War 
had  been  felt  very  little  by  any  of  the  colonies,  except  New  York 
and  New  England,  but  in  this  war  of  Queen  Anne’s  reign,  they  got 
involved  with  Spain  also,  and  so  the  Carolinas  had  their  share  of 
fighting  with  the  Spanish  colonies  in  Florida. 

At  length,  in  1713,  a  new  peace  was  made  between  France  and 
England  at  the  town  of  Utrecht,  which  was  called  the  peace  of 
Utrecht.  In  this  peace  France  gave  England  the  domain  which 
they  called  “  Acadief  and  we  call  “  Nova  Scotia.”  They  also  gave 
up  the  fur  trade  of  Hudson  Bay,  and  the  whole  of  the  island  of 
Newfoundland. 

One  of  the  effects  of  these  wars  was  that  the  colonies  got  in  debt, 
and  could  not  get  gold  and  silver  to  pay  what  they  owed,  so  they 
were  obliged  to  issue  notes.  This  was  the  first  paper  money  ever 
used  in  the  colonies. 

The  Indians  still  troubled  the  colonies  more  or  less,  especially  in 
South  Carolina.  Indeed  the  history  of  all  settlements  in  the  country 
is  the  history  of  Indian  troubles,  and  there  is  little  hope  of  being  en¬ 
tirely  free  from  them  as  long  as  the  white  man  and  the  red  man  live 
on  the  same  continent. 

I  am  sorry  to  be  obliged  to  tell  you  so  much  about  war.  It  is 
not  a  very  pleasant  subject  to  read  about.  But  I  must  make  a  brief 
mention  of  one  more  war  between  France  and  England  in  which 
they  again  involved  their  colonies,  and  then  for  a  chapter  or  two  we 
can  pass  to  more  interesting  subjects. 

This  third  war  was  called  King  George’s  W ar  because  it  happened 
in  the  time  of  George  II.  You  must  understand  that  Queen  Anne 
had  died  and  been  succeeded  by  a  distant  relative  of  hers  from 
Hanover  in  Germany,  who  reigned  under  the  title  of  George  I. 
This  king  in  turn  had  been  followed  by  his  son  George  II.,  in  whose 
reign  the  new  war  was  begun.  We  shall  hear  a  good  deal  about 


150 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


the  Georges  of  England  for  a  long  time  to  come  in  our  history,  and 
i  want  you  to  keep  their  names  in  remembrance. 

“King  George’s  War”  began  in  1744  and  lasted  four  years. 
Then  a  famous  peace  was  made  between  France  and  England  called 
the  peace  of  Aix-la-Chapelle.  The  treaty  took  its  name  from  the 
place  in  Germany  where  it  was  signed  by  all  the  European  nations 
who  had  been  fighting  together.  In  this  country  the  fighting  had 
been  going  on  as  briskly  as  in  Europe.  It  seems  incredible  that 
Christian  nations  should  have  offered  rewards  for  the  scalps  of  their 
enemies,  and  yet  it  was  done  during  these  wars.  When  peace  was 
declared,  the  governor  of  the  French  colonies  ordered  their  Indian 
allies  to  be  notified  “  that  they  were  not  to  go  to  New  England  on 
any  more  war  parties,  as  they  will  not  be  paid  in  future  for  prison¬ 
ers  or  scalps .” 


CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

FRENCH  DISCOVERERS  AND  JESUIT  MISSIONARIES. 

Colony  of  Jacques  Cartier. — French  Fishermen. — Samuel  Champlain  the  Father  of  New 
France.  —  Jesuits  on  the  Mississippi. — Story  of  Isaac  Jogues. —  Indians  worshiping  with 
Roman  Catholics. 

*i  y  y 

Since  I  told  you  of  the  attempts  of  the  brave  sailor  of  St.  Malo, 
Jacques  Cartier,  to  found  a  city  at  Montreal,  and  the  failure  of 
Coligny  to  plant  colonies  in  the  Carolinas,  I  have  not  told  you 
much  about  the  progress  of  French  colonies  in  America.  I  am  now 
going  back  to  take  up  the  thread  of  my  story  where  it  left  the 
French  explorers  and  colonists,  and  tell  you  what  they  had  done 
since  the  times  of  Cartier  and  Ribault.  It  is  a  long  and  interesting 
story,  full  of  many  strange  and  moving  adventures,  both  by  water 
and  land. 

Almost  from  the  time  that  their  ships  first  came  over  to  America, 
the  French  merchants  and  sailors  were  interested  in  the  fishing 
business  which  was  so  flourishing  off  the  banks  of  Newfoundland. 
When  Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert  came  over  here  in  1585,  he  found 
French  ships  fishing  away  on  the  banks.  The  discoveries  of  Ver- 
razano  and  Cartier  gave  the  French  their  claim  to  the  northern  part 
of  America,  which  they  called  New  France.  In  1603  the  king  of 
France  gave  one  of  his  noblemen  all  that  part  of  America  between 


FRENCH  DISCOVERERS  AND  JESUIT  MISSIONARIES. 


151 


the  fortieth  and  forty-sixth  degrees  of  north  latitude.  Look  on 
the  map,  and  you  will  see  just  where  this  tract  lies.  At  this  very 
time,  or  shortly  after,  King  James  I.  gave  away  some  of  this  very 
land  to  companies  of  his  subjects.  Very  little  was  known  about 
boundary  lands  in  North  America  in  those  days. 

For  many  years  before  the  time  of  James  I.,  French  merchants 
had  been  sending  ships  over  here  for  furs ,  of  which  they  brought 
home  large  quantities  of  very  fine  ones.  It  was  so  profitable  that 
even  the  nobles  of  France  did  not  disdain  to  be  interested  in  the  fur 
trade.  After  this  tract  of  land  was  given  away  by  the  king  of 
France,  it  was  named  Acadie,  and  for  a  long  time  the  part  of 
North  America  now  called  Nova  Scotia  bore  that  name.  About  the 
year  1603  Samuel  Champlain  sailed  to  explore  America.  He  went 
to  Maine  and  put  a  colony  on  its  shores,  but  they  suffered  so  from 
cold  and  want  of  provisions,  that  this  site  was  given  up.  In  1608 
he  tried  a  colony  in  Quebec,  Canada,  with  better  success.  The  first 
winter  was  a  hard  struggle,  almost  as  severe  as  the  winter  in  Maine, 
but  they  were  not  discouraged,  and  in  the  spring  Champlain  set  out 
to  explore  the  country.  He  had  with  him  a  party  of  Indians  who 
were  at  war  with  the  tribes  of  northern  New  York.  Champlain 
had  made  a  treaty  with  them,  to  take  their  part  against  their  ene¬ 
mies,  if  they  would  keep  peace  with  him.  They  went  in  boats,  past 
the  rapids  of  the  St.  Lawrence  River,  and  finally  reached  the  shores 
of  a  beautiful  inland  lake.  Here  they  met  a  party  of  the  hostile 
Indians,  who  prepared  to  attack  them.  But  when  Champlain 
turned  upon  them  with  his  glittering  muskets,  and  fired  into  their 
ranks  ;  when  they  saw  the  “  thunder  and  lightning,”  as  they  called 
it,  of  the  guns,  they  were  filled  with  terror  and  fled,  leaving  a  few 
dead  and  wounded  behind  them.  The  lake,  on  whose  borders  this 
fight  took  place,  was  Lake  Champlain ,  and  still  bears  the  name  of 
the  man  who  discovered  it.  For  many  years  Champlain  remained 
in  Canada,  where  he  was  called  the  “  Father  of  New  France.” 
Yon  have  heard  of  the  “  Canadian  boat-song,”  which  is  sung  by  the 
boatmen  of  the  St.  Lawrence.  It  is  said  that  the  first  boat-song 
which  ever  woke  the  wild  echoes  of  Canada,  was  sung  by  Chain- 
plain's  sailors  as  they  rowed  up  the  river  from  their  rude  settlement 
at  Quebec,  to  explore  the  unknown  western  wilderness. 

After  Champlain  had  been  a  few  years  in  America,  he  sent  over 
to  France  for  some  missionaries,  to  be  employed  in  converting  the 
Indians  to  the  Christian  religion.  Nearly  all  the  early  explorers  of 


BOSTON  COLLEGE 

FACULTY  LIBRARY 

CHESTNUT  HILL,  MASS. 


152 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


France  and  Spain  were  devout  Roman  Catholics,  and  were  anxious 
to  convert  the  savages  to  their  religion.  No  doubt  Champlain  was 
a  sincere  and  good  man,  and  desirous  to  save  these  heathen  souls. 

The  sending  for  these  missionaries,  was  a  very  important  fact 
in  the  history  of  America.  From  that  time  forward  they  came  in 
scores,  all  intent  upon  penetrating  deeper  and  deeper  into  the  wilder¬ 
ness,  and  setting  up  the  cross,  the  emblem  of  their  religion,  where 
the  Indians  could  bow  before  it.  These  Catholic  priests,  most  of 
them,  were  “  Jesuits,”  or  “  members  of  the  Order  of  Jesus.”  They 
were  nearly  all  excellent,  self-denying  men,  who  bore  suffering, 
great  perils,  and  cruel  death,  with  meekness  and  heroism,  in  the 
service  of  their  religion.  While  good  John  Eliot  was  at  work 
teaching  the  Bible  to  the  “  bloody  heathen  ”  of  New  England,  these 
priests  had  penetrated  to  the  shores  of  Lake  Huron  and  Lake  Su¬ 
perior,  and  planted  the  cross  in  northern  Michigan.  While  the 
English  colonists  had  only  learned  the  geography  of  the  sea-coast 
on  which  they  lived,  these  early  Jesuits  had  explored  the  interior  of 
the  continent,  all  the  Mississippi  valley,  and  the  whole  course  of 
the  mighty  father  of  rivers.  The  history  of  their  travels  is  no  less 
interesting  than  that  of  the  early  voyagers,  who  one  century  earlier 
had  explored  the  region  about  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  discovered 
the  “  South  Sea,”  and  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  River.  It  was 
fortunate  for  history  that  these  Jesuits  were  men  of  education,  who 
nearly  all  wrote  accounts  of  the  places  they  visited,  and  drew  maps 
of  the  country  over  which  they  passed.  Our  first  maps  of  the  Mis¬ 
sissippi  valley  we  owe  to  these  missionaries. 

One  of  the  earliest  Jesuits  was  Isaac  Jogues.  He  came  with  an 
earnest  desire  to  do  good  to  the  uncivilized  Indian,  and  was  one  of 
those  who  went  to  Lake  Huron  to  establish  a  mission  at  St.  Mary’s, 
on  Lake  Superior.  Unfortunately  the  small-pox  had  broken  out  in 
the  vessel  which  brought  the  Jesuits,  and  the  infection  spread  from 
them  to  the  savages.  The  Indians  regarded  the  plague  as  an  evil 
spirit  sent  among  them  by  the  priests,  and  for  a  time  refused  to 
listen  to  them.  Poor  Isaac  Jogues  was  taken  prisoner  and  dread¬ 
fully  treated.  They  tore  out  his  finger-nails,  and  forced  him  to  run 
up  and  down  a  line  of  savage  warriors,  each  of  whom  would  strike 
at  him  as  he  ran,  with  war-clubs  or  tomahawks,  till  he  was  muti¬ 
lated  and  bleeding,  and  almost  dead.  Yet  when  he  was  at  length 
released,  and  sent  to  his  friends,  Jogues  could  not  rest  till  he  had 
again  been  sent  to  preach  to  the  Indians,  and  he  was  finally  mur- 


THE  MISSISSIPPI  EXPLORED. 


153 


dered  by  them  with  great  tortures.  Generally,  however,  the  Jesuits 
made  friends  with  the  Indians,  and  were  loved  by  them.  Their 
manner  of  worship  attracted  the  Indians  more  than  the  severe  and 
simple  mode  of  the  Puritans.  The  priests  brought  pictures  of  the 
Virgin  and  the  child  Jesus  to  show  the  savages  ;  they  wore  robes 
of  brilliant  colors  when  they  celebrated  mass ;  sometimes  they 
would  lead  a  band  of  Indians  in  solemn  procession  bearing  banners 
and  sacred  images,  to  a  place  where  a  rude  church  was  erected  ;  all 
the  ceremonies  were  like  a  new  kind  of  play  to  these  children  of 
the  wilderness,  in  which  they  joined  with  grave  delight. 

The  New  England  colonists  hated  the  priests  and  accused  them  of 
inciting  the  savages  to  carry  bloodshed  into  their  borders.  I  do  not 
believe  this  to  be  true,  as  in  all  the  accounts  of  their  lives  and  char¬ 
acters  they  appear  to  be  men  of  great  gentleness  and  purity,  quite 
ready,  and  even  anxious  to  die  for  their  religion.  They  advocated 
temperance  among  the  Indians,  and  when  the  French  fur-traders  be¬ 
gan  to  sell  rum  and  brandy  to  the  savages,  the  Jesuits  begged  that 
the  sale  of  it  should  be  stopped. 

But  though  they  petitioned  the  French  Minister  to  forbid  the  sale 
of  liquor  to  the  Indians,  they  could  get  no  better  answer  than  this  : 
“  The  principle  is  good,  but  it  will  ruin  trade ,  for  the  Indians  are 
very  fond  of  brandy,  and  if  we  do  not  sell  it  them,  they  will  go  and 
sell  their  furs  to  the  Dutch  traders  in  New  York  and  get  brandy  of 
them.” 

So  the  French  government  said,  “  Give  the  Indians  the  brandy,” 
and  all  the  prayers  of  the  Jesuits  did  not  arrest  the  evil. 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 

THE  MISSISSIPPI  EXPLORED. 

James  Marquette  is  sent  to  the  Great  River.  — He  goes  with  Joliet  to  Wisconsin.  — Carrying 
their  Canoes  on  their  Backs.  — The  Bison  ancl  Deer.  —  Greeting  of  the  Illinois.  —  Death  of 
Marquette.  —  Robert  La  Salle  in  Illinois.  —  Fort  Heartbreak.  —  Murder  of  La  Salle.  —  Hen¬ 
nepin  goes  to  Falls  of  St.  Anthony.  —  Adventures  of  Marquette  and  Joliet.  — Explorations 
of  the  Mississippi  River  by  La  Salle  and  Hennepin. 


In  the  year  1673  a  very  important  mission  was  undertaken  by 
two  of  the  Jesuits  who  had  been  teaching  the  Indians  in  the 
region  of  Lake  Superior.  These  two  men,  James  Marquette  and 
Louis  Joliet,  were  selected  by  the  superior  officer  of  their  order  to 


154 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


go  on  a  voyage  of  discovery  down  among  the  Illinois  Indians.  It 
was  a  mission  on  which  Marquette,  who  was  a  most  pious  and  de¬ 
voted  man,  had  long  desired  to  be  sent.  Every  day  for  many 
months  he  had  prayed  that  God  would  put  it  into  the  heart  of  the 
priest  from  whom  he  received  his  orders,  to  send  him  down  among 
these  unknown  savages,  to  whom  he  longed  to  preach  the  gospel. 
He  had,  also,  another  object  in  view  besides  the  conversion  of  the 
Illinois  tribe.  Me  had  heard  of  a  broad  river  which  the  Indians 
called  “  Mississippi  ”  —  “  great  river  ” —  which  ran  through  a  beau¬ 
tiful,  fertile  country  till  it  reached  the  sea.  You  know  this  was 
more  than  a  century  after  De  Soto  had  explored  the  Mississippi, 
from  its  mouth  almost  to  its  junction  with  the  Missouri,  and  the 
tradition  of  a  great  river  in  the  centre  of  this  continent  had  become 
dim,  and  was  almost  forgotten.  None  of  the  French  or  English 
knew  anything  about  the  river,  except  by  rumors  from  the  Indians, 
of  a  great  “father  of  waters”  in  the  west.  So  Marquette,  who  had 
heard  these  rumors,  longed  to  go  and  explore  there.  When  he 
heard  that  leave  had  been  granted  him  to  set  out,  he  fell  on  his 
knees  and  thanked  God. 

As  soon  as  they  were  ready  to  start,  Joliet  and  Marquette  called 
together  the  Indians  with  whom  they  had  been  living,  and  asked 
them  all  sorts  of  questions  about  the  way  to  the  country  of  the  Illinois. 
The  Indians,  who  loved  the  good  priests,  told  them  all  they  knew. 
Marquette  drew  a  rude  map  from  the  direction  they  gave,  and  with 
this  poor  chart  they  started  in  bird}  bark  canoes  for  the  unexplored 
wilderness. 

They  took  to  their  boats  at  Mackinaw,  and  rowed  to  Green 
Bay,  Wisconsin.  Then  they  took  the  Fox  River,  as  far  as  they 
could  navigate  it,  thence  across  a  short  piece  of  swampy  prairie, 
over  which  they  carried  their  birch  bark  canoes  on  their  shoulders, 
till  they  reached  the  Wisconsin  River.  Embarked  on  the  beautiful 
Wisconsin,  they  soon  floated  down  to  its  junction  with  the  Missis¬ 
sippi,  and  were  borne  upon  the  bosom  of  the  great  Father  of 
Rivers.  I  wish  you  would  get  the  map  and  trace  out  this  journey 
of  Marquette  and  Joliet.  Imagine  how  perilous  it  must  have 
seemed,  and  how  blind  the  way  was,  and  then  fancy  their  joy  at 
finding  the  river  of  which  they  had  heard.  The  two  companions 
paddled  merrily  on,  looking  with  interest  and  delight  at  all  they 
saw.  It  was  June,  and  the  shores  were  green  and  beautiful.  Over 
the  prairie  they  saw  herds  of  bison  or  buffalo  scattered,  and  some- 


THE  MISSISSIPPI  EXPLORED  155 

times  a  moose  or  elk,  seen  in  the  distance,  excited  their  wonder 
and  delight. 

They  had  been  just  a  week  on  the  river,  when  to  their  great  joy 
they  saw  human  foot-prints  on  the  bank.  They  stopped  their 
canoes,  pulled  them  up  on  the  shore  and  followed  the  trail.  In  a 
short  time  they  found  an  Indian  village,  whence  all  the  people  came 
crowding  out  to  see  them.  It  was  a  village  of  the  Illinois  tribe, 
whom  Marquette  had  longed  to  find. 

These  people  received  Marquette  with  great  kindness,  and  made 
a  feast  for  him,  where  all  smoked  the  calumet,  or  pipe  of  peace. 
At  the  door  of  the  cabin  where  they  were  received  as  guests,  an 
old  man  saluted  them  in  these  words  :  — 

“  How  beautiful  is  the  sun,  O  stranger,  when  thou  comest  to 
visit  us.  All  our  town  awaits  thee,  and  thou  shalt  enter  our  wig¬ 
wams  in  peace.” 

The  Indians  called  Marquette  “  Black  gown,”  on  account  of  the 
long  black  cloth  robe  reaching  to  his  heels  which  all  of  the  priests 
wore. 

After  a  friendly  and  pleasant  visit  among  these  Illinois  people, 
Marquette  and  Joliet  took  to  their  boats  again,  and  went  down  to 
the  Arkansas  region,  to  within  a  few  days’  sail  of  the  mouth  of  the 
Mississippi.  Their  whole  voyage  is  so  interesting,  that  I  wish  I 
had  space  to  give  you  a  longer  account  of  it. 

Two  years  after  he  had  been  down  the  river,  Marquette  was 
taken  ill,  after  a  severe  winter  sojourn  in  the  Illinois  region,  near 
where  the  city  of  Chicago  is  now  built.  He  felt  that  he  was  soon 
to  die,  and  welcomed  death  with  great  joy.  The  companions  who 
were  with  him  built  a  poor  little  cabin  in  the  dim  forest,  and  while 
they  wept  at  his  loss,  the  good  Marquette  consoled  them,  and  told 
them  not  to  be  sad  at  his  leaving  them.  When  he  died,  they 
buried  him  in  the  lonely  wilderness  with  many  tears,  for  they  all 
loved  him.  His  body  was  afterward  taken  to  Mackinaw,  and  there 
it  reposes  at  the  junction  of  two  lakes  whose  borders  were  the 
scenes  of  his  pure  labors. 

After  Marquette’s  death,  a  Frenchman  named  La  Salle  planned 
a  new  exploration  of  the  Mississippi.  Robert  La  Salle  had  been 
educated  for  a  priest,  but  not  liking  the  life,  he  had  become  a  skillful 
captain  and  navigator.  He  owned  land  in  Canada,  and  had  been  the 
commander  of  a  fort  there.  When  he  started  to  explore  the  Mis¬ 
sissippi,  he  took  with  him  a  company  of  men,  —  sailors,  mechanics, 


156 


STOHY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


carpenters,  and  other  workmen,  that  he  might  be  able  to  build  forts, 
or  make  settlements  wherever  he  might  fix  upon  a  favorable  spot. 
He  went  very  much  the  same  difficult  and  roundabout  way  which 
Marquette  had  taken,  through  Green  Bay,  Wisconsin.  Instead  of 
taking  the  Wisconsin  River  to  its  junction  with  the  Mississippi,  how¬ 
ever,  he  took  the  Illinois  River,  and  by  the  middle  of  winter  he 
found  himself  near  a  small  lake  called  Peoria,  in  the  centre  of  what 
is  now  the  State  of  Illinois.  He  had  not  found  the  Indians  disposed 
to  be  as  friendly  to  him  as  they  were  to  Marquette,  and  his  journey 
to  this  place  had  been  very  hard  and  discouraging.  On  a  little  hill 
near  the  lake,  he  set  his  men  to  work  to  build  a  fort,  which  he 
called,  in  French,  “  Fort  Heartbreak.”  I  think  this  a  very  piti¬ 
ful  title,  and  that  poor  Robert  La  Salle,  who  was  a  brave  mail, 
must  have  felt  very  sore  at  heart  when  he  gave  the  place  this  name. 

It  was  the  winter  of  1681  that  La  Salle  finally  got  embarked  on 
the  great  Mississippi  to  go  down  its  current.  In  a  few  weeks  they 
passed  from  the  frozen  region  of  the  Illinois  to  the  beautiful  south¬ 
ern  country  of  verdure  and  blossoms.  They  found  plum,  peach,  mul¬ 
berry,  apple,  and  pear  trees  in  bloom,  and  the  promise  of  fruits  was 
luxuriant.  At  last,  in  April,  they  arrived  at  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
and  with  great  solemnity  they  planted  the  cross  and  raised  the  arms 
of  France  aloft  on  the  shore.  He  called  the  great  river  the  River 
Colbert ,  in  honor  of  the  prime  minister  of  France,  and  taking  pos¬ 
session  of  the  whole  country  in  the  name  of  the  “  mighty,  invinci¬ 
ble,  and  victorious  Prince  Louis  of  France,”  he  called  it  Louisiana. 

LaSalle  made  a  journey  north  to  tell  the  results  of  his  voyage,  and 
then  came  back  again  to  the  fort  which  he  had  left  near  the  mouth 


of  the  river.  In  this  last  expedition  he  attempted  to  return  to  Illi¬ 
nois  by  land.  Just  after  he  had  started  back  there  was  mutiny  and 
dissatisfaction  among  his  men.  Some  of  these  mutineers  murdered 
the  nephew  of  La  Salle,  who  was  out  on  an  expedition  with  them. 
As  his  nephew  did  not  return,  La  Salle  went  out  into  the  forest  in 
search  of  him,  taking  with  him  a  priest  who  belonged  to  the  party. 
On  his  way  out,  La  Salle  was  very  sad,  and  talked  like  a  man  in 
deep  melancholy.  As  they  walked  on  he  suddenly  came  upon  the 
bloody  neckerchief  of  his  servant,  who  had  also  been  killed  by  these 
bad  men.  While  La  Salle  was  examining  this,  two  of  the  murderers 
who  were  hidden  in  the  grass,  one  on  each  side  of  him,  fired  sud¬ 
denly  and.  gave  him  a  fatal  wound  in  the  head.  Thus  died  the 
brave  Chevalier  Robert  La  Salle,  the  first  explorer  of  the  Mississippi 


THE  LAST  COLONIAL  WAR. 


157 


River  from  the  great  lakes  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  It  seems  almost 
as  if  the  father  of  rivers  had  been  fatal  to  its  discoverers.  Ferdi¬ 
nand  de  Soto  was  buried  in  its  bosom ;  James  Marquette  died  in  the 
forest  not  far  from  its  shores ;  and  Robert  La  Salle  was  murdered  on 
its  banks  and  buried  in  a  lonely  grave  within  hearing  of  its  waves. 

La  Salle  had  sent  one  of  his  company,  a  priest  named  Louis 
Hennepin,  to  explore  the  Mississippi  to  the  north,  when  he  sailed 
south.  Hennepin  had  gone  up  as  far  as  the  Falls  of  St.  Anthony 
and  had  given  these  falls  their  name.  So  in  this  year  (1682)  the 
whole  of  the  Mississippi  region,  and  all  the  interior  —  which  they 
now  called  Louisiana  —  had  been  explored  by  the  French.  This 
was  shortly  after  King  Philip’s  War  in  Massachusetts,  and  Bacon's 
rebellion  in  Virginia.  And  at  that  early  day  the  territory  which 
now  forms  the  States  of  Wisconsin,  Michigan,  Minnesota,  Illinois, 
Indiana,  Ohio,  Arkansas,  Missouri,  Mississippi,  and  Louisiana,  had 
been  traveled  over  by  these  Frenchmen,  and  in  many  of  these 
States  trading-posts  for  furs,  or  permanent  settlements  had  been 
already  made.  Before  the  English  had  explored  one  hundred  miles 
west  of  the  sea-coasts,  these  devoted  missionaries  had  opened  up 
the  great  interior,  with  its  magnificent  lakes  and  rivers.  Let  us 
say,  “  All  honor  to  them  for  their  untiring  energy  and  perseverance, 
which  they  exercised  without  hope  of  reward.  All  honor,  also,  to 
Robert  La  Salle,  the  brave  gentleman  who  sleeps  on  the  banks  of 
the  Mississippi.” 


CHAPTER  XXX. 

THE  LAST  COLONIAL  WAR. 

Position  of  French  and  English  Colonies.  —  The  English  Colonies  hug  the  Sea-coast.  — Jealousy 
between  the  Nations.  —  Trouble  brewing.  —  Young  George  Washington.  —  His  Winter  Jour¬ 
ney  to  Fort  Duquesne. 

I  WISH  you  would  try  and  trace  out  on  a  map  of  the  United 
States  the  position  of  the  French  and  English  colonies  in  our  coun¬ 
try  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century.  If  you  do  so,  you  will 
see  that  the  English  owned  all  the  sea-coast-  on  the  Atlantic  from 
Maine  to  Florida.  In  Florida  the  Spanish  claimed  ownership,  and 
there  they  still  kept  up  the  old  town  of  St.  Augustine,  settled  in  the 
Huguenot  Ribault’s  day.  Up  to  the  north  the  English  owned  Nova 
Scotia  (which  the  French  called  Acadie),  ever  since  it  had  been 


158 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


yielded  them  by  the  French  in  the  peace  that  ended  Queen  Anne’s 
War.  The  French  possessions  began  in  Canada  on  the  St.  Law¬ 
rence,  stretched  west  to  the  great  lakes,  and  followed  down  the 
valley  of  the  Mississippi.  They  had  a  line  of  forts  which  were  half 
military  and  half  trading-posts,  beginning  at  Quebec  and  extending 
all  through  the  west  and  south  till  they  reached  New  Orleans.  You 
will  see  that  many  of  our  large  cities  and  towns  in  the  west  and 
southwest  had  their  origin  in  these  French  posts.  The  fur-traders, 
and  some  of  the  soldiers,  became  at  home  in  the  wilderness.  Often 
they  married  Indian  women,  who  were  devoted  to  their  white  hus¬ 
bands  and  made  them  very  faithful  wives.  The  French  were  a 
light-hearted,  merry  people,  and  they  made  sunshine  in  the  wilder¬ 
ness.  The  Indians  called  them  “  good  spirits.”  They  joined  in  the 
dance  with  the  red  men,  smoked  with  them,  lived  in  their  wig¬ 
wams,  and  were  able  to  feel  a  more  friendly  regard  for  them  than 
the  English  ever  could  feel.  Consequently  the  Indian  liked  the 
light-hearted  Frenchman,  and  would  rather  trade  for  furs  with  him 
than  the  more  reserved  English  trader. 

By  the  year  1750  the  French  forts  extended  from  the  Ohio  River 
as  far  west  as  the  present  State  of  Kansas.  You  can  see,  then,  that 
the  French  settlements  somewhat  resembled  a  broad  half  circle,  ex¬ 
tending  around  the  outer  edge  of  the  English  colonies. 

Now  the  grants  of  land  which  had  been  given  to  the  English 
owners  in  North  America  by  their  sovereigns,  were  supposed,  when 
originally  given,  to  extend  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific.  Of 
course  when  Kings  James  and  Charles  granted  lands,  no  one  had 
any  idea  how  wide  the  continent  was.  Some  of  the  early  colonists 
fancied  it  might  be  two  or  three  hundred  miles  wide,  but  they  knew 
nothing  about  it,  and  the  English  showed  less  inclination  to  be  ex¬ 
plorers  than  either  the  French  or  Spanish.  Instead  of  pushing  into 
the  wilderness,  they  would  settle  right  down  on  the  sea-coast,  and 
go  to  trading  with  Europe.  Yet  they  always  felt  that  the  land  at 
their  backs,  in  the  great  West,  was  theirs,  and  year  after  year  it 
made  them  more  uneasy  as  they  heard  how  the  French  were  finding 
great  rivers  and  countries  in  the  west,  and  creeping  down  behind 
them,  making  stronger  forts,  and  getting  all  the  richest  fur  trade 
with  the  Indians.  It  seems  always  to  have  been  strongly  felt  by 
the  European  nations  who  settled  on  the  continent,  that  they  must 
own  all  of  it.  Over  in  Europe  they  got  along  very  well  by  being 
cut  up  into  small  parts,  and  one  nation  getting  a  slice  here,  and  an- 


THE  LAST  COLONIAL  WAR. 


159 


other  a  smaller  slice  there,  but  in  America,  the  English,  the  French, 
and  the  Spanish,  seem  to  have  felt  they  must  have  all  or  none.  So 
you  see  it  became  as  plain  as  the  nose  on  your  face,  that  the  French 
and  the  English  must  have  a  war.  The  English  colonies  said  to 
themselves,  “  Either  we  must  crowd  the  French  back  out  of  that 
great  tract  which  they  call  Louisiana,  running  west  of  us,  from  Lake 
Michigan  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  on  both  sides  the  big  river,  or  they 
will  crowd  us  into  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  and  we  shall  have  no  place 
here  at  all.”  Feeling  as  they  did,  the  war  had  to  come,  because  un¬ 
fortunately,  as  yet,  nations  have  no  better  way  of  settling  their  dis¬ 
putes  than  by  fighting.  Just  as  two  bad  boys,  when  they  quarrel 
over  their  playthings,  bite  and  scratch,  and  tear  each  other’s  eyes,  so 
two  great  nations  muster  armies  of  innocent  men,  and  send  them 
out  face  to  face  to  stand  up  and  be  fired  at  with  guns  and  cannons, 
and  fill  fields  with  wounded  and  dying,  and  fill  both  countries  with 
sobs  of  women  and  children  whose  husbands  and  fathers  have  died. 
After  they  have  done  this  till  one  of  them  gets  tired  of  it,  and  can 
lose  no  more  men,  they  make  peace,  and  the  question  is  settled  by  a 
sensible  treaty,  as  it  ought  to  have  been  in  the  first  place.  Of  all 
senseless  and  horrible  proceedings,  war  seems  to  me  the  worst,  fit 
only  for  poor  savages,  and  not  for  civilized  men  and  nations  at  all. 

Peace  was  hardly  declared  after  King  George’s  War  before  the 
French  and  English  in  this  country  began  to  differ  about  boundary 
lines.  The  first  uneasiness  was  felt  down  in  Virginia,  where  the 
French  forts  on  the  Ohio  River  came  nearest  their  boundaries. 
Governor  Dinwiddie  (he  was  then  governor  of  Virginia)  sent  a 
young  major,  George  Washington,  with  a  message  to  the  French 
commander  on  the  Ohio  River,  objecting  to  some  of  his  operations 
there. 

This  George  Washington  you  have  no  doubt  heard  of  if  you 
were  born  in  the  United  States,  and  are  old  enough  to  read.  It  is 
he  who  afterwards  was  known  as  the  “  Father  of  his  Country,”  and 
became  one  of  our  greatest  heroes.  His  family  had  emigrated  to 
Virginia  in  Cromwell’s  reign,  and  his  great-grandfather  was  the 
John  Washington  who  had  been  in  the  Indian  war  in  Maryland, 
just  before  Bacon’s  rebellion.  George  Washington  was  a  major  in 
the  Virginia  military  forces,  and  as  he  was  born  in  Virginia,  and 
knew  the  country  well,  he  was  just  the  man  for  Dinwiddie  to  send 
on  such  an  errand. 

He  had  a  very  hard  journey,  in  cold  weather,  over  mountains 


160 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


and  rivers,  wading  and  climbing,  sometimes  on  foot  and  sometimes 
on  horseback,  often  in  great  danger  from  Indians.  Once  he  and  the 
gentleman  with  him  worked  all  night  with  only  one  miserable 
hatchet,  to  make  a  rude  raft  to  cross  a  river  which  was  too  large 
and  deep  to  ford  ;  all  the  time  fearing  the  savages  would  come  upon 
them.  But  they  reached  the  French  post  on  the  Ohio  at  length, 
and  saw  the  French  commander,  who  did  not  give  any  satisfactory 
answer  to  their  inquiries,  and  then  they  had  the  weary  journey 
back  again. 

This  expedition  of  Washington’s  decided  Virginia  that  there 
must  be  war,  and  in  this  war  all  the  colonies  were  united  in  feeling 
a  desire  to  resist  the  French  power  in  this  country.  Even  weak 
Georgia,  who  had  only  been  settled  a  little  more  than  twenty  years, 
was  ready  to  do  her  best  with  grown  up  Massachusetts  and  Vir¬ 
ginia. 

In  1754  an  expedition  from  Virginia,  with  George  Washington 

as  the  second  in  com¬ 
mand,  was  sent  to¬ 
wards  Pittsburg,  or 
where  Pittsburg  is 
now  built.  They  were 
commanded  to  build 
a  fort  at  the  junction 
of  rivers  which  form 
the  Ohio,  and  to  fight 
any  one  who  molested 
them.  Before  they 
had  proceeded  far,  a 
company  of  French 
came,  drove  them 
away,  and  went  on 
with  the  building  of 
the  fort,  and  named  it 
Fort  JDuquesne.  This  is  where  Pittsburg,  Pennsylvania,  now  stands. 
They  had  some  fighting  about  here,  and,  his  superior  officer  dying, 
young  Washington,  then  only  twenty-two  years  old,  was  made  the 
commander  of  those  forces.  In  the  end  he  was  beaten,  and  had  to 
go  back  to  Virginia,  and  this  was  the  opening  of  the  French  and 
Indian  War. 


FOUR  EXPEDITIONS  AGAINST  THE  FRENCH. 


161 


CHAPTER  XXXI. 

FOUR  EXPEDITIONS  AGAINST  THE  FRENCH. 

Plan  of  the  Campaign.  —  Braddock’s  Contempt  for  American  Militia.  —  George  Washington 

in  the  Expedition. — Braddock’s  Defeat. — French  Neutrals. — Burning  of  Acadie. — 

Evangeline.  — Sir  William  Johnson.  —  King  Hendrick  killed. 

After  war  was  really  begun  over  here,  England,  whom  the  colo¬ 
nists  always  called  the  “  Mother  Country,”  sent  over  one  of  the 
officers  of  her  army  to  be  the  general  of  all  the  forces  here.  Troops 
were  gathered  in  from  all  the  colonies,  and  the  sounds  of  the  drum 
and  fife,  calling  soldiers  together,  was  heard  all  over  the  towns  and 
villages  of  this  new  country.  When  the  English  general,  whose 
name  was  Braddock,  came  to  America,  he  found  the  colonies  all 
ripe  for  war.  The  leading  warriors  all  put  their  heads  together  and 
talked  it  over,  and  this  was  what  they  planned  to  do  for  their  first 
campaign. 

They  agreed  to  divide  into  four  divisions.  General  Braddock 
would  take  one  and  go  down  and  attack  Fort  Duquesne,  on  the 
Ohio,  where  Washington  had  been  beaten  back.  The  second 
division,  under  command  of  General  Winslow,  was  to  go  to  the 
Bay  of  Fundy  and  look  after  Nova  Scotia.  This  General  Winslow 
was  a  grandson  of  Josiah  Winslow,  who  had  beaten  the  Indians  in 
King  Philip’s  War,  and  he  was  supposed  to  have  good  fighting 
blood  in  him.  The  third  division,  under  Governor  Shirley  of  Mas¬ 
sachusetts,  was  to  attack  Fort  Frontenac  on  Lake  Ontario,  and 
Fort  Niagara  on  Lake  Erie.  Finally,  the  fourth  division,  under  Sir 
William  Johnson,  who  lived  in  New  York,  and  was  well  known 
among  the  Mohawk  Indians,  whom  he  hoped  to  induce  to  join  his 
troops,  was  to  attack  two  principal  strongholds  of  the  French  known 
as  Crown  Point  and  Ticonderoga.  Crown  Point  was  on  Lake  Cham¬ 
plain,  and  Ticonderoga  on  Lake  George  in  the  present  State  in  New 
York. 

Now,  for  a  little  while,  we  will  follow  the  fortunes  of  each  of  these 
four  divisions  as  they  set  out  on  their  diverse  roads  to  subdue  their 
hated  French  enemies. 

Braddock  went  first  in  the  summer  of  1755,  to  make  his  attack 
on  Fort  Duquesne.  He  had  brought  over  soldiers,  and  guns,  and 
powder,  and  various  stores  from  England,  and  landed  them  in  Vir¬ 
ginia.  He  started  on  his  march,  accompanied  by  some  of  the  Vir- 


162 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


ginia  militia,  with  young  George  Washington  as  his  aide-de-camp. 
His  way  was  rough  and  hard,  a  good  deal  of  mountain  climbing  to 
do,  rivers  to  ford,  and  trackless  forests  to  pass  through.  The  sol¬ 
diers,  fresh  from  England,  used  to  their  own  settled  and  level  coun¬ 
try,  hardly  knew  how  to  endure  such  hardships,  and  began  to  be 
discouraged  and  tired  out  before  they  had  hardly  begun  their  march. 
The  colonist-troops,  on  the  other  hand,  used  to  Indian  fighting  and 
life  in  the  wilderness,  were  quite  at  home  there 
But  General  Braddock,  who  was  a  high-tempered, 
arrogant  British  officer,  made  up  his  mind  before¬ 
hand  to  feel  nothing  but  contempt  for  the  colonists 
and  their  leaders,  and  paid  no  attention  to  their 
suggestions,  when,  if  he  had  had  the  sense  to  have 
listened  to  them,  they  might  have  helped  him 
greatly.  The  consequence  was  that  Braddock  was 
attacked  by  a  party  of  French  and  Indians  before 
he  reached  Fort  Duquesne,  and  met  with  a  terrible 
defeat.  The  general  was  killed,  and  if  it  had  not  been  for  some  of 
the  despised  colonists  with  Washington  at  their  head,  very  few  Eng¬ 
lish  would  have  been  left  alive.  As  it  was,  they  lost  hundreds  of 
soldiers,  while  the  French  lost  only  a  handful.  And  this  was  the 
end  of  Braddock' s  Expedition. 

In  the  mean  time,  General  Winslow,  the  New  England  com¬ 
mander,  had  started  with  his  party  for  the  Bay  of  Fundy.  Nearly 
all  these  men  were  Massachusetts  men,  who  hated  the  French  and 
the  Catholics  more  intensely  than  any  other  of  the  colonies.  They 
believed  that  almost  every  attack  of  the  Indians  on  their  farms  and 
villages  during  all  the  wars  of  William  and  Anne  and  George,  was 
due  to  the  influence  of  the  Jesuits,  whom  they  abhorred  with  all 
their  might  and  main.  Consequently  they  were  delighted  to  march 
against  Nova  Scotia,  which,  although  it  belonged  to  the  English  by 
treaty  with  the  French,  was  really  settled  entirely  by  French  Cath¬ 
olics.  These  people  were  called  French  “neutrals,”  because  they 
would  not  fight  against  the  French,  and  were  not  allowed  to  fight 
for  them.  They  were  peacefully  working  their  farms  and  minding 
their  own  affairs,  with  war  and  rumors  of  war  all  about  them. 

The  English  chiefs,  however,  feared  that  these  French  neutrals 
would  take  part  with  their  brother  Frenchmen,  and  I  have  very 
little  doubt  they  might  some  of  them  have  done  so.  But  even  that 
fear  did  not  justify  the  cruel  conduct  of  the  English.  I  am  sure 
that  you  will  think  so,  too,  when  I  tell  you  what  they  did. 


FOUR  EXPEDITIONS  AGAINST  THE  FRENCH. 


163 

% 

As  soon  as  they  arrived  in  the  beautiful  Basin  of  Minas,  the  har¬ 
bor  on  whose  borders  these  French  neutrals  were  settled,  they  issued 
an  order  that  the  people  all  over  the  country  should  meet  in  their 
parish  churches,  and  hear  a  proclamation,  which  the  English 
wished  to  read  to  them. 

The  people  in  the  settlements  —  there  were  about  15,000  in  all 
—  left  their  work  and  flocked  to  the  churches.  The  farmer  left  his 
harvest  field,  the  blacksmith  his  anvil,  and  the  wife  and  maiden 
their  spinning-wheels.  When  they  got  inside  their  churches  they 
found  themselves  surrounded  by  crowds  of  red-coated  British  sol¬ 
diers.  Unarmed,  and  unable  to  resist,  they  were  hustled  to  the 
harbor,  and  crowded  on  board  the  English  ships  like  herds  of  sheep 
and  lambs  who  are  to  be  sent  to  the  slaughter-house.  Families  were 
torn  apart ;  wives  lost  their  husbands  ;  and  mothers  looking  over  their 
flock  of  little  ones,  often  found  part  of  their  children  missing.  Out¬ 
cries  and  bitter  sobbing  pierced  the  air,  and  ought  to  have  pierced 
the  hearts  of  their  oppressors.  But  the  ships  sailed  away  with 
these  poor  people,  and  the  hearts  of  the  English  remained  steeled. 
As  they  sailed  down  the  harbor  in  the  twilight,  the  captives  saw  the 
soft  September  sky  painted  with  a  terrible  glare,  which  lighted  with 
lurid  glow  the  whole  heavens.  It  was  the  burning  of  their  homes 
and  barns  and  corn-ricks,  which  their  merciless  enemies  had  de¬ 
stroyed,  that  they  might  also  destroy 
the  last  hope  of  the  poor  Acadians 
of  ever  finding  their  homes  again. 

All  over  the  country  these  poor 
people  were  scattered.  Many  never 
met  again  the  dear  ones  from  whom 
they  had  been  torn,  and  died  of 
homesickness  and  heartbreak.  A 
little  company  of  them  went  down  to 
the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi,  and 
settled  in  the  country  about  New 
Orleans.  Some  of  the  young  maid¬ 
ens  and  children,  separated  from 
their  parents,  were  made  “  bound 
servants”  in  the  families  of  English 
colonists.  Our  poet  Longfellow  has 
written  a  lovely  poem  called  “  Evan¬ 
geline,”  which  tells  all  this  sad  story  of  Acadie,  and  the  history 


164 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


of  one  of  these  Acadian  exiles,  torn  from  the  home  she  had  loved, 
and  all  she  held  dear. 


Acadians  leaving  Home. 


The  next  division  of  the  army  was  commanded  by  Sir  William 
Johnson.  He  was  born  in  England,  and  had  been  appointed  “In¬ 
dian  Agent  *’  (or  manager  of  affairs  and  trade 
with  the  Indians)  of  the  colony  of  New  York. 
He  lived  in  a  fine  mansion,  which  he  bnilt  upon 
an  eminence  overlooking  the  Mohawk  River,  and 
had  been  very  successful  in  making  friends  with 
King  Hendrick,  the  chief  of  the  Mohawk  In¬ 
dians,  and  in  gaining  the  good-will  of  the  tribe. 
Sir  William,  who  was  a  tall,  elegant  looking 
man,  had  adopted  a  dress  not  unlike  that  of  an 
Indian  chief,  and  wore  leggings  of  deer-skin,  and  belt  embroidered 
with  wampum,  so  that  he  looked,  when  browned  by  the  sun  and 


Sir  William  Johnson. 


FOUR  EXPEDITIONS  AGAINST  THE  FRENCH.  165 

wind,  like  a  handsome  Indian  warrior.  He  had  also  taken  an  In¬ 
dian  maiden,  the  daughter  of  a  chief,  for  his  wife,  and  this  aided  to 
make  his  friendship  with  the  Mohawk  tribe  more  secure. 

These  Indians,  therefore,  were  quite  ready  to  come  to  the  aid  of 
Sir  William  Johnson  when  the  war  broke  out  ;  and  when  he  began 
his  march  against  the  French  forts  at  Crown  Point  and  Ticon- 
deroga,  a  large  party  of  Indian  allies  went  with  him.  A  party  of 
the  English  forces  had  already  built  a  fort  a  few  miles  above  Al¬ 
bany  called  Fort  Edward,  and  Sir  William  joined  them  and  went 


Block-house  on  Lake  Erie. 


on  toward  the  place  where  he  expected  to  begin  his  siege.  All  at 
once  he  heard  that  a  body  of  French  troops  were  coming  on  to  at¬ 
tack  him.  He  sent  ahead  a  party  of  Indians  and  Americans  to 
meet  them,  and  these  forces  were  beaten  back  by  the  French,  and 
their  two  leaders  killed.  Both  these  leaders  were  men  whose  names 
ought  to  be  remembered.  The  Indian  was  King  Hendrick,  the 
Mohawk  chief,  a  noble  and  brave  Indian.  The  American  leader 
was  Colonel  Ephraim  Williams,  who,  just  before  setting  out  to  take 
part  in  this  war,  had  made  his  will,  giving  his  property  to  estab- 


166 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


lish  a  college  in  Massachusetts.  The  institution  now  exists  under 
the  name  of  Williams  College.  This  college  remains  as  a  proof 
that  the  early  founders  of  this  country  remembered,  in  all  their 
dark  days  of  Indian  warfare,  the  necessity  for  schools  and  universi¬ 
ties  in  this  new  land. 

After  dispersing  the  forces  of  King  Hendrick  and  Colonel  Will¬ 
iams,  the  French  swept  down  upon  Johnson.  There  they  suffered 
severe  retribution.  Johnson  had  had  time  to  get  ready  for  them, 
and,  when  they  attacked  him,  defeated  them  completely,  taking  their 
leader  prisoner.  He  concluded,  however,  not  to  go  on  to  Crown 
Point,  and  contented  himself  with  building  the  fort  at  the  north¬ 
ern  part  of  Lake  George  (Fort  William  Henry).  He  also  ordered 
the  building  of  a  line  of  forts  all  along  the  frontier  from  Albany 
to  Oswego,  and  the  whole  of  northern  New  York  began  to  be  well 
fortified  and  assume  a  warlike  appearance. 

The  expedition  under  Governor  Shirley  against  the  forts  on  the 

lakes  did  not  begin  favorably.  Indeed  it 
began  so  unfavorably  that  it  was  decided  to 
abandon  it  for  that  time,  and  after  sending  a 
few  hundred  men  to  defend  Fort  William 
Henry,  just  built  by  Johnson’s  men,  Shirley 
returned  to  Boston. 

Such  were  the  results  of  the  four  plans  of 
Biock-house.  campaign  for  the  year  1755,  which  celebrated 

the  opening  of  the  great  struggle  for  possession  of  this  country 
between  the  French  and  English.  You  can  imagine  if  you  like 
what  a  difference  it  would  have  made  in  this  United  States,  and  in 
the  people  who  live  here,  if  the  French  had  been  in  the  end  victo¬ 
rious.  I  doubt  very  much  if  there  would  have  been  any  such 
country  as  the  United  States,  if  the  colonies  here  had  been  made 
subjects  of  France. 


SECOND  YEAR  OF  WAR. 


167 


CHAPTER  XXXII. 

SECOND  YEAR  OF  WAR. 

French  Fortifications  in  America.  —  War  in  earnest.  —  Story  of  Mrs.  Howe  and  her  Children. 

— Massacre  at  Fort  William  Henry.  — Loss  of  a  Noble  Young  Leader.  —  George  Washing¬ 
ton’s  Advice  to  the  British  Colonel.  —  The  City  of  Quebec.  —  Wolfe  approaches  the  Fortress. 

—  The  Heights  of  Abraham.  —  Defeat  of  the  French.  —  Death  of  Wolfe.  —  Peace  at  last. 

In  the  close  of  the  last  year,  the  mother  countries  had  pre¬ 
tended  not  to  take  any  share  in  the  war  of  their  American  colonies. 
But  they  now  began  to  see  that  it  was  time  for  them  to  take  a  more 
active  part,  and  therefore  France  and  England  declared  war  against 
each  other,  for  the  fourth  time  in  about  seventy-five  years. 

Before  we  go  any  farther,  I  wish  you  to  fully  understand  the 
exact  position  of  the  principal  French  and  English  forts  in  America. 
The  description  will  not  be  very  interesting,  but  it  is  necessary  for 
you  to  get  the  position  of  the  two  countries  mapped  out  in  your 
head,  in  order  that  you  may  understand  the  plan  of  the  war.  For 
you  know  in  a  war  for  the  possession  of  a  country,  the  one  who 
takes  the  most  forts  or  strongholds  will  in  the  end  be  the  victor. 

First,  then,  the  eastern  end  of  the  French  line  of  forts  was  at 
Louisburg,  a  very  strong  place  on  Cape  Breton  Island,  commanding 
all  the  fisheries  and  the  entrance  to  the  St.  Lawrence  River.  Next 
came  Quebec  and  Montreal,  the  two  old  towns  on  the  St.  Lawrence. 
Then  came  Crown  Point  and  Ticonderoga  in  New  York,  on  Lake 
Champlain  and  Lake  George.  Fort  Frontenac,  where  La  Salle  used 
to  command  almost  a  century  before,  was  on  Lake  Ontario,  and 
Fort  Niagara  was  between  the  two  lakes.  The  French  line  of 
strongholds  thence  extended  down  the  Ohio  River  at  Fort  Duquesne, 
where  Braddock  was  killed,  and  from  thence  all  along  the  Missis¬ 
sippi,  where  they  ended  in  New  Orleans.  There  were  a  great  many 
of  these  forts  all  over  the  Northwest,  but  I  have  only  given  you  the 
names  of  those  which  were  most  important  in  the  war. 

Until  this  war  began,  the  English  had  paid  little  attention  to 
fortifying  their  western  border.  But  as  soon  as  the  troubles  broke 
out,  they  went  to  building  forts,  and  at  the  opening  of  the  second 
year  of  war,  they  had  several  important  positions.  Fort  Cumber¬ 
land  was  built  in  Virginia,  where  George  Washington  was  com¬ 
manding  the  forces  of  the  colony.  Forts  Edward  and  William 


168 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


Henry  were  built  in  eastern  New  York,  near  Crown  Point  and 
Ticonderoga.  They  were  also  strengthening  their  lines  all  along  in 
New  York,  where  they  ended  in  the  strongly  fortified  town  of  Os¬ 
wego.  Besides  these,  of  course  their  sea-coast  towns,  of  Boston, 
New  York,  and  Charleston,  were  always  carefully  guarded. 

Now  can  you  see  it  all  like  the  pieces  on  a  chess  board  ?  If  the 
English  take  Louisburg,  Quebec,  Ticonderoga,  and  the  rest,  they 
will  beat  France.  If  they  cannot  get  them,  and  the  French  take 
Oswego  and  William  Henry,  get  down  to  the  city  of  Albany  and 
take  that,  and  then  keep  pressing  in  on  the  borders  of  Virginia  and 
New  England,  in  the  end  they  will  crowd  the  English  out  and  get 
the  rule  here.  Keep  all  this  in  mind  now  and  we  will  rapidly  fol¬ 
low  the  motions  of  the  two  armies. 

As  soon  as  they  declared  war  openly,  the  French  sent  over  to 
Canada  a  very  able  commander,  named  Montcalm,  and  the  English 
sent  two  generals,  Loudon  and  Abercrombie,  each  commander  with 
troops  and  war  ships.  Loudon  was  not  a  very  able  man,  and  Aber¬ 
crombie  soon  superseded  him. 

As  soon  as  war  began  in  earnest,  the  worst  feature  of  it,  as  usual, 
was  the  Indian  raids  upon  defenseless  villages.  The  peace  that  Sir 
William  Johnson  kept  with  the  Mohawks  in  New  York,  helped 
them  greatly  there,  but  in  Virginia,  Pennsylvania,  and  Massachu¬ 
setts  these  were  dreadful  days.  The  Indians  were  so  bold  that 
they  came  once  within  thirty  miles  of  the  city  of  Philadelphia,  and 
the  lonely  little  villages,  remote  from  large  cities,  lived  in  constant 
dread.  I  could  tell  you  stories  enough  to  fill  a  great  book,  of  white 
people  who  were  taken  captive  and  carried  off  to  slavery  by  these 
terrible  foes. 

One  summer  morning  in  July  a  troop  of  hooting  and  yelling  sav¬ 
ages  rushed  into  a  little  village  in  New  Hampshire.  After  their  work 
of  destruction  and  death  was  over,  they  left  the  settlement  with  a 
band  of  captives,  among  whom  was  a  Mrs.  Howe  and  her  seven  chil¬ 
dren.  They  scattered  the  children  in  various  French  families  along 
the  route,  selling  them  to  any  family  among  the  French  who  would 
give  them  gay  calico  for  their  squaws,  or  an  iron  kettle  in  which  to 
cook  food,  or  even  a  drink  of  “  fire-water,”  to  quench  their  thirst 
for  the  new  strong  liquor  which  the  Avliite  man  had  brought  among 
them.  They  permitted  Mrs.  Howe  to  keep  her  baby,  who  was  only 
a  helpless  infant,  and  with  this  in  her  arms  they  took  her  to  Mon¬ 
treal.  Her  dearest  wish  was  to  be  sold  to  some  decent  French  peo- 


SECOND  YEAR  OF  WAR. 


169 


pie  as  a  slave,  for  terrible  as  it  seemed  for  a  free-born  English 
woman  to  live  in  slavery,  it  was  a  bright  fate  compared  to  the  pros¬ 
pect  of  being  kept  among  the  savages.  But  at  Montreal  her  hope 
died  out.  No  one  would  buy  her  because  she  had  her  infant  with 
her.  “  We  do  not  want  a  slave  with  a  child,”  they  said,  “  she  will 
be  nothing  but  a  burden  to  us.” 

On  this  she  was  taken  back  into  the  wilderness,  and  her  last  child, 
her  baby,  was  torn  from  her  arms  and  given  away,  she  knew  not 
where,  nor  to  whom.  In  the  forest  among  the  Indians,  she  suffered 
the  acutest  tortures  of  hunger,  and  when  winter  approached,  of  cold 
also.  A  few  acorns  found  in  the  wood  were  a  feast  for  her.  In 
her  dreams  she  heard  the  crying  of  her  poor  children,  till  it  often 
seemed  as  if  her  mind  would  give  way  and  she  should  go  mad.  At 
length  she  found  her  baby,  and  one  of  her  other  children,  in  the 
wigwam  of  an  Indian  family.  When,  with  a  cry  of  joy,  she  took 
her  baby  in  her  arms,  the  poor  little  creature  was  in  such  a  famished 
condition  that  it  bit  its  mother  in  the  face  like  a  starved  wild  animal. 
Fortunately,  the  poor  infant  soon  died,  and  its  sufferings  were  at 
an  end. 

In  the  spring  her  captors  once  more  took  Mrs.  Howe  to  a  French 
village,  and  succeeded  in  selling  her.  Her  owners  were  kindly 
people  and  she  was  comfortable  once  more  in  body.  But  you  can 
fancy  what  heart-ache  she  felt,  torn  from  her  kindred  and  home,  as 
she  saw  herself  day  after  day  sinking  into  hopeless  bondage,  expect¬ 
ing  to  die  a  miserable  slave.  Such  was  the  fate  of  many  an  English 
and  French  captive  in  these  horrible  wars.  But  Mrs  Howe’s  case 
proved  happier.  Colonel  Philip  Schuyler,  who  was  a  prominent  citi¬ 
zen  of  Albany,  heard  of  her  condition,  and  himself  sent  her  money 
by  which,  she  was  able  to  purchase  her  own  liberty  and  that  of  four 
of  her  sons.  With  these  rescued  children  she  returned  to  her  home 
in  New  Hampshire.  After  the  war  she  journeyed  to  Canada  and 
recovered  another  child,  a  daughter.  One  of  her  daughters,  who 
had  been  sold  to  the  governor  of  Canada,  was  taken  to  France  and 
respectably  married  there.  This  story  is  only  one  among  thousands 
not  unlike  it,  which  are  found  in  the  annals  of  the  French  and  In¬ 
dian  wars  in  America. 

The  close  of  the  year  1757  looked  very  dark  for  the  English. 
The  French  had  succeeded  in  taking  Oswego,  one  of  their  strongest 
points.  Montcalm,  the  French  general,  had  laid  siege  to  Fort 
William  Henry.  The  garrison  had  held  out  nobly  ;  but  at  last,  their 


170 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


powder  giving  out,  they  were  obliged  to  give  up.  Colonel  Munroe 
was  the  commander  there,  and  he  obtained  the  pledge  that  his  band 
of  soldiers  should  go  out  unharmed  from  the  fortress,  leaving  it  to 
the  French.  The  French  commander  gave  his  word,  but  no  sooner 
had  the  brave  little  garrison  marched  a  short  distance  from  the  fort, 
than  a  band  of  Indians,  allies  of  the  French,  fell  upon  them  and 
slew  them  without  mercy. 

The  English  colonies  were  filled  with  gloom  and  anxiety,  and 
complained  so  loudly  that  some  of  their  fears  spread  among  their 
friends  in  England,  and  at  the  beginning  of  1758  much  more  vigor¬ 
ous  measures  were  taken.  Three  expeditions  were  sent  out  at  once, 
against  Louisburg,  Ticonderoga,  and  Duquesne.  The  force  which  be- 
seiged  Louisburg  after  a  hard  siege  took  the  town,  thus  getting  one 
of  the  best  strongholds  of  the  enemy,  and  the  control  of  the  entrance 
to  Canada. 

At  the  same  time  General  Abercrombie  went  to  Ticonderoga,  and 
here  a  sad  event  occurred  for  the  English  army.  They  were  de¬ 
feated,  and  lost  many  men.  Among  others  a  brave  young  general, 

Lord  Howe,  was  killed,  who  of  all  their 
leaders  was  the  one  most  liked  by  the  col¬ 
onists.  Nearly  all  the  British  officers,  like 
Braddock,  had  felt  and  shown  great  con¬ 
tempt  for  the  colonial  soldiers  and  leaders, 
and  this  contempt  for  the  advice  and  experi¬ 
ence  of  the  residents  in  America  lost  the 
English  many  battles.  But  Lord  Howe  was 
a  young  soldier  of  better  sense  than  most  of 
the  others.  He  lived  like  a  plain  soldier,  in 


Lord  Howe. 


a  tent  in  the  fields,  dressed  plainly,  and  ate  soldier’s  fare.  He  found 
the  soldiers’  lives  were  often  endangered  by  their  long-tailed  army 
coats,  which  the  Indians  would  catch  at  from  their  ambush  behind 
trees,  and  he  ordered  all  his  soldiers  to  wear  jackets,  wearing  one 
himself  to  set  the  example.  He  gave  every  attention  to  the  health 
of  his  men,  providing  in  all  ways  that  he  could  for  their  comfort, 
and  when  they  had  discomforts  he  shared  them  with  the  men.  Of 
course  he  was  loved  by  every  one;  all  called  him  a  model  com¬ 
mander,  and  when  he  died,  fighting  before  Ticonderoga,  all  the 
country  mourned  for  the  young  man,  as  a  true  gentleman  and  hero. 
Abercrombie’s  forces  did  some  good  service,  however,  after  the  de¬ 
feat  at  Ticonderoga.  They  went  down  to  Oswego,  retook  it  from 
the  French,  and  afterward  captured  Fort  Frontenac. 


SECOND  YEAR  OF  WAR. 


171 


Colonel  Forbes  led  the  army  against  Duquesne.  When  he  got  as 
far  as  Cumberland,  George  Washington,  who  commanded  there, 
said  to  him,  “  You  had  better  go  by  Bradclock’s  old  road.  A  good 
many  trees  are  cut  down,  and  bridges  built,  in  that  road,  and  it  will 
save  time  and  labor.”  But  a  British  officer  had  no  idea  of  paying 
any  attention  to  young  Washington,  who  was  nothing  but  a  col¬ 
onist,  and  so  he  started  to  make  a  new  road.  This  hewing  a  fresh 
path  through  the  wilderness  caused  them  great  delay  and  suffering, 
and  might  have  caused  the  ruin  of  the  whole  expedition.  Fortu¬ 
nately  for  them,  however,  the  French  heard  stories  of  their  coming, 
and  fancied  them  much  stronger  than  they  really  were.  They  were 
very  short  of  provisions  in  the  fort,  and  just  before  the  English  got 
there,  they  set  fire  to  the  place  and  ran  away.  The  English  took  it 
and  changed  the  name  of  Duquesne  to  Pittsburg ,  and  a  flourishing 
city  stands  there  to-day,  on  the  site  of  the  old  French  fort.  This 
year  ended  in  English  rejoicing,  with  Louisburg  and  Duquesne  in 
their  possession,  and  Oswego  back  again,  beside  the  smaller  fort, 
Frontenac,  which  they  had  also  taken. 

Now  that  they  held  two  such  important  points  in  the  French 
lines  as  Louisburg  and  Duquesne,  the  English  thought  if  they  could 
only  take  Quebec  the  French  power  would  be  completely  broken. 
But  it  was  not  an  easy  matter  to  take  Quebec.  You  would  say  so 
if  you  had  ever  seen  the  town.  It  is  built  high  up  on  the  top  of  a 
precipice,  at  least  two  hundred  feet  above  the  St.  Lawrence  River, 
and  the  steep,  rocky  cliff  looks  as  if  no  human  foot  could  scale  it. 

A  brave  young  English  general,  James  Wolfe,  had  been  at  the 
taking  of  Louisburg,  and  behaved  so  gallantly  there,  that  it  was  de¬ 
cided  to  send  him  to  make  an  attempt  on  Quebec.  He  accordingly 
sailed  thither  with  a  large  fleet,  and  disembarked  on  the  opposite 
shore  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  on  a  low-lying  point  of  land  known  as 
Point  Levi.  By  this  time  the  French  were  growing  uneasy  at  the 
English  successes.  They  knew  they  must  hold  Quebec  or  acknowl¬ 
edge  themselves  beaten.  They  summoned  at  once  the  soldiery  in 
Crown  Point  and  Ticonderoga,  who  left  those  posts  and  came  up 
to  defend  their  more  important  fortress.  For  two  months  General 
Wolfe  lay  in  his  quarters  at  Point  Levi,  looking  over  at  Quebec, 
and  thinking  how  it  were  best  to  attack  it.  The  town  itself  was 
built  within  a  strong  wall.  Back  of  the  city,  lay  broad  green  fields 
known  as  the  “  Plains  of  Abraham.”  Wolfe,  who  was  constantly 
studying  some  means  of  reaching  the  top  of  the  cliff,  one  day  dis- 


172 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


covered  a  little  cove  at  the  foot  of  the  heights  which  ascended  to 
these  plains.  From  this  cove,  where  boats  could  be  run  in,  he 
thought  the  heights  could  be  scaled.  On  a  quiet,  moonless  evening 
in  September,  the  army  crossed  noislessly  in  small  boats,  and  under 
cover  of  night  began  the  ascent.  They  were  obliged  to  catch  at 
projecting  rocks,  twigs,  and  roots  of  trees,  to  pull  themselves  up. 
Of  all  their  artillery  they  could  only  get  up  one  small  cannon. 
How  they  ever  dragged  even  that  up,  it  is  difficult  to  imagine. 

On  the  way  across  the  river,  in  the  silent  night,  Wolfe,  lying  in 
his  boat,  wrapped  in  a  cloak,  murmured  softly  to  himself  some 
verses  of  Gray's  “  Elegy,”  and  when  he  had  finished,  said,  “  I 
would  rather  have  written  that  poem  than  take  Quebec.” 

In  the  morning  when  the  French  were  awake,  they  saw  something 
stirring  out  on  the  Plains  of  Abraham.  They  rubbed  their  eyes  in 
wonder.  It  could  not  be  possible  !  They  could  not  believe  their 
senses.  And  yet  it  really  was  the  English  army. 

Montcalm  was  in  Quebec,  and  on  finding  that  the  enemy  were  in¬ 
deed  on  the  plains,  he  went  to  meet  them  with  his  whole  force.  A 
severe  battle  began.  Wolfe  was  wounded  twice,  but  still  fought  he¬ 
roically.  As  he  led  on  his  men  in  a  final  attack,  he  was  struck  in 
the  side  and  fell  with  a  deadly  wound.  At  this  moment  he  heard 
the  cry,  “  They  run !  They  run  !  ”  “  Who  run  ?  ”  he  asked  eagerly. 
“The  French!  ”  “  Go,”  lie  cried,  “cut  off  the  retreat  of  the  fugi¬ 

tives  to  the  bridge.”  Then  sinking  back  into  the  arms  of  his  at¬ 
tendants,  he  said,  “  I  die  in  peace,”  and  breathed  his  last  breath. 

Montcalm  was  also  killed  in  this  battle,  which  was  a  fatal  one  for 
the  French.  With  the  taking  of  Quebec,  they  knew  that  their  power 
was  broken  in  America.  Almost  at  the  same  time  of  the  taking;  of 
Quebec,  came  news  that  Sir  William  Johnson  had  taken  Fort  Niag¬ 
ara  which  was  the  only  place  of  consequence,  except  Montreal,  left 
to  the  French  in  their  whole  line  from  Louisburg  to  Duquesne. 

Now  the  people  in  Boston  and  New  York  rang  their  bells  and 
shouted  and  hurrahed.  The  boys  built  bonfires,  and  everybody  in 
the  English  cause  was  delighted  at  the  approach  of  peace.  The 
French  governor  went  down  to  Montreal,  and  concentrated  his 
forces  there,  but  it  was  no  use.  They  were  obliged  to  confess  them¬ 
selves  beaten.  This  was  in  1759,  and  peace  would  have  been  de¬ 
clared  at  once  if  the  English  government  had  not  felt  so  elated 
over  their  success  that  they  carried  the  war  down  into  some  of  the 
West  India  islands  owned  by  the  French,  and  conquered  those.  In 


A  TOUR  IN  AMERICA. 


173 


1762  peace  was  at  last  made  between  France  and  England.  France 
had  to  give  up  all  her  possessions  in  Canada  to  the  English,  and  all 
her  claim  to  America,  except  the  tract  known  as  Louisiana.  I  have 
already  told  you  what  a  large  tract  that  was,  a  good  many  times 
larger  than  the  present  State  of  Louisiana. 

To  pay  Spain  for  helping  her  in  the  war,  they  then  were  obliged 
to  give  Spain  the  Louisiana  country,  and  thus  France  lost  her  last 
claim  to  North  America.  Canada  has  ever  since  belonged  to  the 
English.  Yet  there  are  still  many  traces  of  the  early  French  col¬ 
ony  there.  If  you  go  to  Quebec  or  Montreal,  you  will  find  that  these 
towns  are  largely  French.  In  the  streets,  stores,  and  markets  you 
will  hear  almost  as  much  French  as  English  ; 
and  you  will  see  the  Jesuit  priests  in  their 
long  black  robes,  mingling  with  English  sol¬ 
diers  in  the  streets.  Outside  the  walls,  on  the 
green  Plains  of  Abraham,  is  a  granite  monu¬ 
ment  with  the  simple  inscription,  “  Here  lies 
Wolfe,  victorious.” 

The  fortress  in  Quebec  is  still  very  strong, 
much  stronger  than  when  Wolfe  took  it,  and  General  woife. 

there  is  always  a  large  garrison  there.  The  English  are  not 
afraid  of  the  French  any  more.  They  cannot  retake  Quebec,  but 
there  is  another  great  nation  on  her  borders,  against  whom  she 
would  think  it  more  necessary  to  keep  Quebec  guarded.  Can  you 
guess  what  nation  it  is  ?  I  am  going  to  tell  you  directly  how 
there  came  to  be  this  new  nation  in  America.  Only  I  wish  first 
to  take  you  among  the  thirteen  colonies,  and  see  in  what  condition 
they  find  themselves  after  this  last  French  war. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

A  TOUR  IN  AMERICA. 

Sailing  for  Boston.  —  Boston  in  1760.  —  Dress  of  Lady  and  Gentleman.  —  Thanksgiving  in 
New  England. — Irish  Flax  Spinners. — By  Stage-coach  to  New  Haven. — New  York 
Harbor.  —  A  Dutch  Interior.  —  Drive  through  New  York  City.  —  New  Year’s  Day.  —  Up 
the  Hudson  to  Albany.  —  Journey  through  New  Jersey.  —  How  Philadelphia  Streets  were 
named.  —  The  Great  State-house  Bell.  —  Account  of  Benjamin  Franklin.  —  Plantations  in 
Virginia.  —  Christmas  Festivities.  —  A  Group  of  Noble  Virginians.  —  Cotton  Crop  of  Eliza 
Lucas. 

Well,  French  rule  is  over  in  North  America,  and  the  English  col- 
mists  breathe  freely.  They  have  always  been  afraid  that  those 


174 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


dreadful  “  Jesuits  and  Papists  ”  would  get  control  of  affairs  here, 
and  they  are  very  happy  at  having  the  dread  removed.  But  this 
happiness  is  to  be  brief.  In  less  than  fifteen  years  these  colonies, 
who  are  now  rejoicing  in  the  victory  of  their  “  dear  mother- 
country  ”  over  that  abominable  nation  of  France,  will  be  strug¬ 
gling  to  wrest  their  liberties  from  England,  as  men  struggle 
from  the  grasp  of  their  deadly  enemy.  There  is  a  cloud  now  on 
their  sky  no  bigger  than  a  man’s  hand,  which  has  in  it  all  the  thun¬ 
der  of  rebellion.  As  yet,  however,  they  do  not  see  the  cloud,  and 
while  they  take  a  resting  and  breathing  spell  after  the  long  war, 
you  and  I  will  go  on  a  journey  over  these  thirteen  colonies,  visit 
some  of  the  largest  cities,  and  see  how  these  people  are  getting  on. 

Can  you  go  back  in  imagination  to  the  year  1760,  and  fancy  your¬ 
self  an  English  boy  or  girl  about  to  take  ship  for  his  majesty’s  col¬ 
onies  in  North  America  ?  You  cannot  go  there  in  a  steamship,  you 
know.  There  are  no  steamships,  no  steam-engines,  no  means  of 
traveling  by  steam.  Just  about  this  time,  a  man  in  England, 
named  James  Watt,  is  experimenting  with  steam,  to  see  what  can 
be  done  with  it,  but  people  generally  have  very  little  confidence 
that  his  labors  will  amount  to  anything. 

So  we  will  leave  England  in  a  sailing  vessel,  and  shall  be  five  or  six 
weeks  on  the  voyage,  landing  at  last,  very  dirty  and  travel-worn,  in 
the  harbor  at  Boston,  the  largest  town  in  New  England.  This  city 
is  now  one  hundred  and  thirty  years  old,  and  is  really  quite  a  stir¬ 
ring  metropolis.  As  we  come  up  the  harbor,  we  can  see  the  English 
flag  flying  from  the  public  buildings,  and  we  know  we  are  under  the 
protection  of  English  law,  and  the  rule  of  an  English  governor. 

The  city,  as  you  see,  is  built  upon  three  hills,  and  already  some 
fine  looking  houses  are  scattered  about.  Rather  irregularly,  how¬ 
ever,  for  this  city  was  not  carefully  laid  out  when  first  settled,  like 
Philadelphia  or  the  new  town  of  Savannah  in  Georgia.  There  are 
from  16,000  to  20,000  people  in  the  city,  and  the  spires  of  ten 
churches  rise  from  among  the  clustering  houses  of  brick  and  wood. 

That  fine  house  of  brick,  three  stories  high,  belongs  to  Governor 
Hutchinson,  the  lieutenant-governor  and  chief-justice  of  the  colony. 
If  we  enter  the  house,  we  shall  find  a  large  hall  with  massive  stair¬ 
case  heavily  carved,  the  floor  laid  in  elegant  mosaic  of  different 
woods.  In  the  parlors  the  walls  are  painted  in  fresco,  fluted  columns 
supporting  the  ceiling,  and  heavy  mahogany  furniture  is  set  round  in 
stately  grandeur.  There  are  many  houses  in  Boston  which  rival 


A  TOUR  IN  AMERICA. 


175 


Governor  Hutchinson's  in  magnificence,  and  these  things  show  a 
great  improvement  in  arts  and  manufactures  since  the  time  the  col¬ 
onists  first  landed  at  Plymouth.  Another  fine  house  is  the  Province 
House.  It  stands  on  the  principal  street,  a  stately  pile  of  brick, 
with  the  king’s  arms,  handsomely  gilded,  put  over  the  entrance.  It 
has  a  little  garden-plot  in  front,  in  which  are  a  few  trees.  A  cupola 
surmounts  it,  with  the  figure  of  an  Indian  on  top,  made  of  bronze. 


John  Hancock’s  Residence,  Boston. 


A  little  farther  down  is  the  court-house,  which  is  thought  quite  a 
grand  building ;  and  still  farther  on  is  Peter  Faneuil’s  new  struct¬ 
ure,  Faneuil  Hall,  the  most  imposing  in  the  town.  Near  the  court¬ 
house  is  the  “  South  Meeting-house,”  and  at  the  other  end  of  the 
town,  on  Copp’s  Hill,  stands  the  u  North  Meeting-house.”  King’s 
Chapel  is  the  Episcopal  church,  and  here  the  king’s  officers,  who 
are  nearly  all  stanch  churchmen,  attend  worship. 

Across  Charles  River,  in  the  town  of  Cambridge,  stands  Harvard 
College,  a  flourishing  university,  almost  as  old  as  the  town  itself. 
There  many  of  the  rising  young  men  of  Massachusetts  have  gradu¬ 
ated,  among  whom  are  Mr.  John  Adams  and  Mr.  John  Hancock  of 
Braintree,  who  have  both  just  left  its  walls. 

Dress  has  also  changed  very  much  since  the  time  of  James  I.  and 
Charles  II.  The  Puritans  could  not  be  called  “  Roundheads”  any 


176 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


more.  They  wear  great  powdered  wigs  when  they  go  out  in  full 
dress,  or  else  powder  their  own  hair,  and  tie  it  behind  in  a  long 
queue.  Do  you  see  that  gentleman  standing  in  his  door  taking  a 
sniff  of  morning  air  before  he  goes  out  to  walk  ?  It  is  one  of  the 
prominent  citizens.  He  has  on  a  red  velvet  cap,  with  an  inside  cap 
of  white  linen  which  turns  over  the  edge  of  the  velvet  two  or  three 
inches ;  a  blue  damask  dressing-gown  lined  with  sky-blue  silk  ;  a 
white  satin  waistcoat,  with  deep  embroidered  flaps ;  black  satin 
breeches  with  long  white  silk  stockings,  and  red  morocco  slippers. 
When  he  goes  out  into  the  street  he  will  change  his  velvet  cap  for 
a  three-cornered  hat ;  his  flowered  brocade  for  a  gold-laced  coat  of 
red  or  blue  broadcloth,  with  deep  lace  ruffles  at  the  wrists  ;  put  a 
sword  at  his  side,  and  wear  a  pair  of  shoes  with  great  silver  or  gold 
buckles.  Then  he  will  be  a  well-dressed  gentleman  of  the  eight¬ 
eenth  century.  If  he  were  a  very  young  man,  and  a  good  deal  of 
a  dandy,  his  toilet  would  be  more  elaborate.  His  shirt  front  would 
be  trimmed  with  fine  lace,  with  a  great  brooch  stuck  in  it,  his 
breeches  of  green  or  red  velvet,  or  white,  lilac,  or  blue  satin,  and 
his  morocco  shoes  would  have  diamond  buckles. 

The  lady  in  the  next  house,  who  is  going  to  a  dinner  party,  sat 
three  hours  under  the  barber's  hands  to  get  her  hair  done  in  that 
amazing  mass  of  frizzles  and  puffs  and  rolls,  one  upon  the  other,  till 
it  looks  like  a  Pyramid  or  the  Tower  of  Babel.  She  has  on  a  bro¬ 
cade  dress,  green  ground  with  great  flowered  sprigs  on  it,  looped  up 
over  a  pink  satin  petticoat.  It  is  very  low  in  the  neck,  with  a  lace 
stomacher,  and  is  very  tightly  pulled  over  a  stiff  hoop  which  sticks 
out  so  on  both  sides  that  she  has  to  go  in  at  the  door  sideways. 
The  heels  of  her  shoes  are  very  high,  and  she  wears  beautiful  white 
silk  stockings.  Do  you  think  her  tastefully  dressed  ?  At  home  she 

wears  a  cap  and  a  pretty  chintz  gown,  a  neat 
little  white  apron  and  muslin  kerchief  over 
her  neck.  These  are  the  rich  people  who 
dress  thus.  The  farmers’  wives  wear  checked 
dresses  of  linen  for  summer  and  linsey-wool¬ 
sey  for  winter,  which  they  spin  themselves; 
while  their  husbands  and  sons  wear  stout 
leather  breeches,  and  checked  shirts  or 
smock-frocks.  On  every  day  but  Sunday, 
the  mechanics  and  laborers  wear  leather 
aprons,  and  are  not  ashamed  of  this  badge 


Spinning-wheel. 


A  TOUR  IN  AMERICA. 


17T 


of  employment.  This  is  the  way  the  people  look  in  America  in 
these  prosperous  clays.  The  sober  Roundheads  of  Cromwell’s 
time  would  hardly  know  their  American  brothers  of  George  the 
Third’s  day. 

The  Puritan  people  have  changed  more  in  dress  than  in  manners. 
They  still  keep  strict  watch  over  the  religious  habits  of  their  church- 
members,  and  they  look  on  the  Church  of  England  as  very  little 
short  of  Popery.  They  will  not  keep  Christmas  nor  any  like  holi¬ 
day.  Instead,  their  chief  day  in  the  year  is  Thanksgiving  Day, 
which  they  celebrate  in  the  fall,  after  the  harvest  is  gathered. 
Then  the  good  housewives  cook  pumpkin  pies  and  mince  pies  for  a 
week  beforehand,  and  at  dinner  on  the  eventful  day,  the  table 
groans  under  the  weight  of  turkeys,  chickens,  pies,  and  smoking 
plum-puddings.  They  have  frequent  tea-drinkings  —  the  American 
women  are  famous  for  their  passion  for  the  Chinese  herb  —  where 
the  women  take  their  knitting-work  and  sewing  for  the  afternoon, 
and  end  the  day  with  a  sociable  cup  of  tea.  The  residents  of  New 
England  who  favor  more  latitude  of  amusement  than  is  found  in 
the  simple  social  life  just  described,  are  generally  either  those  of 
English  birth  who  hold  office  under  the  crown,  or  the  children  of 
the  rich  Americans  who  have  imbibed  worldly  notions  abroad.  In 
the  country,  the  life  is  still  more  primitive  and  untainted  by  any 
breath  of  fashion. 

Although  Boston  is  the  great  centre  of  Massachusetts  in  1760,  we 
must  not  imagine  that  Boston  is  all  of  New  England.  Industrious 
and  thriving  towns  are  growing  up  all  over  these  colonies.  In  the 
town  of  Derry,  in  New  Hampshire  Colony,  a  company  of  thrifty 
people,  called  Scotch-Irish,  settled  forty  or  fifty  years  ago,  bringing 
with  them  their  wheels  for  spinning  flax.  They  taught  the  Massa¬ 
chusetts  women  to  spin  better  linen  than  they  had  yet  been  able  to 
produce.  All  along  the  coast  of  Maine,  still  a  province  of  Massa¬ 
chusetts,  the  hardy  lumbermen  are  cutting  down  the  great  pine- 
trees  of  Maine,  making  them  into  masts  for  vessels,  which  they  send 
by  ship-loads  to  England.  In  all  the  growing  towns  on  the  sea- 
coasts,  the  hammer  of  the  ship-carpenter  and  the  boat-builder  is 
heard.  To  be  sure,  nearly  all  manufactured  articles  are  brought 
from  England  ;  still,  many  kinds  of  manufactures  are  successfully 
begun.  They  are  making  shoes  in  Lynn,  cotton  and  woolen  cloth 
in  Rhode  Island,  and  very  good  silk  for  ribbons  and  dresses  in  Con¬ 
necticut.  Everywhere  new  industries  are  starting  up,  that  the 

12 


178 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


people  may  not  be  obliged  to  send  so  far  for  the  comforts  and  luxu¬ 
ries  of  life. 

If  we  should  stay  long  enough  to  visit  all  the  places  in  New  Eng¬ 
land  which  have  something  interesting  about  them,  we  should 
stop  at  least  a  year.  We  cannot  spend  so  long  a  time,  therefore  we 
will  take  the  stage-coach  from  Boston  to  New  York  city.  We  shall 
be  at  least  a  fortnight  on  the  way.  If  the  fall  rains  are  heavy,  and 
the  roads  muddy,  we  shall  be  longer  perhaps,  and  if  the  stage  gets 
into  a  deep  rut  of  mud,  all  the  passengers  will  get  out,  and  pry  the 
clumsy  old  vehicle  out  upon  solid  ground  again. 


American  Stage-coach. 


On  we  go  then  in  the  stage-coach.  The  driver  sounds  his  horn, 
cracks  his  whip,  and  we  whirl  along  merrily.  In  the  evening  we 
have  a  great  bull’s-eye  lantern  in  front  of  our  coach,  glaring  like  an 
eye  of  fire,  as  we  crash  along  through  forests,  and  over  lonely  roads. 
We  go  through  Connecticut,  through  the  towns  of  Hartford  and 
New  Haven, —  the  towns  settled  by  the  west  country  people  in 
1685.  New  Haven  has  a  college  called  Yale,  founded  in  1701. 
In  that  year  a  party  of  ten  Connecticut  ministers  met  together, 
each  bringing  a  few  books,  which  he  laid  down  saying,  “I  give  these 
to  found  a  college  for  learning  in  Connecticut.”  That  little  begin 
ing  has  flourished,  and  Yale  is  already  a  powerful  rival  of  Harvard. 

At  New  Haven  we  have  reached  Long  Island  Sound,  and  if  we 
choose,  we  can  here  take  a  vessel  for  New  York.  If  we  choose  too, 
we  may,  before  leaving  New  England,  go  by  the  Sound  to  New¬ 
port,  and  see  how  Roger  Williams’s  colony  flourishes.  We  shall 
find  Providence  a  thriving  city,  and  her  sister  town  of  Newport,  by 


<r  A  TOUR  IN  AMERICA. 


179 


the  aid  of  its  splendid  harbor,  growing  more  prosperous  every  year. 
Here,  into  the  beautiful  Narragansett  Bay,  ships  come  from  abroad, 
loaded  with  rich  cargoes.  If  Roger  Williams  had  been  ever  so 
much  of  a  dreamer,  he  could  hardly  have  dared  to  dream  so  much 
prosperity  could  come  to  his  poor,  struggling  colony  in  little  more 
than  a  century. 

And  now  we  have  left  New  England,  the  home  of  the  Puritans 
and  Pilgrims,  and  are  in  New  York,  the  New  Amsterdam  of  the 
stirring  Dutch  traders.  If  we  go  by  a  vessel,  we  can  sail  up  to  the 
foot  of  the  island  right  in  the  teeth  of  the  guns  which  the  Dutch 
fired  against  the  British  when  they  came  to  take  the  city  in  1664. 
The  fortifications  are  stronger  now,  and  they  have  a  line  of  guns 
all  around  the  “  Battery,”  as  the  lower  end  of  the  city  is  called. 
Behind  the  fortifications,  the  Battery  is  planted  with  fine  shade 
trees,  which  look  green  and  beautiful.  Here  and  there  you  see  a 
windmill,  which  reminds  you  of  the  early  days  when  brave  Peter 
Stuyvesant  was  governor.  Let  us  walk  up  the  principal  street.  It 
is  called  Broadway  ;  what  odd  looking  houses,  of  yellow  and  black 
bricks,  with  great  iron  figures  on  the  front  to  tell  when  the  house 
wras  built!  Some  of  the  brick  houses  have  dates  as  early  as  1650 
and  1660.  They  have  very  pointed  gable  roofs,  with  weather-cocks 
on  top.  The  houses  have  balconies  in  front,  and  in  the  summer 
evenings  you  will  see  the  families  sitting  there  to  enjoy  the  fresh 
sea-breeze.  Would  you  like  to  go  into  one  of  the  houses  of  the 
Dutch  citizens?  They  are  very  nice  and  clean,  for  these  Holland 
people  are  the  tidiest  in  the  world.  This  is  the  best  room.  There 
is  no  carpet,  although  a  few  of  the  richest  people  in  the  colonies 
are  beginning  to  use  them.  Instead  there  is  a  large  drugget  in 
the  middle  of  the  floor.  The  walls  are  not  papered,  but  there  are  a 
great  many  pictures  in  little  frames,  hung  all  over  them.  See  the 
great  wide  chimney  with  blue  and  white  tiles,  with  Bible  pictures 
on  them,  all  inlaid  about  the  chimney-piece.  On  each  side  the 
chimney  is  a  deep  alcove,  which  makes  two  cozy  nooks,  in  which 
we  could  sit  to  read  or  sew.  The  great  high  bedstead,  with  feather 
bed,  is  in  the  corner,  and  in  that  high  chest  of  drawers  beside  it  are 
stores  on  stores  of  linen  sheets,  not  very  fine,  but  very  white,  which 
the  thrifty  housewife  and  her  daughters  have  spun  themselves. 
There  are  also  stores  of  home-knit  stockings  of  red,  green,  and  blue 
yarn,  and  you  will  see  in  the  street  many  stout  legs  cased  in  red  or 
green  stockings  which  have  been  knit  by  the  quick  fingers  of 


180 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


mothers  and  wives.  The  chairs  are  leather-covered,  with  high 
backs ;  and  two  chairs  covered  with  “  blue  damask  trimmed  with 
silver  lace  ”  are  very  carefully  kept,  because  they  are  too  nice  to  be 
used,  except  on  extra  occasions.  In  the  living-room  you  will  find 
stores  of  shining  pewter-ware,  with  some  silver,  and  some  delft 
earthenware,  all  set  up  for  show  in  closets  with  glass  doors.  These 
are  very  comfortable  homes,  and  pleasant,  are  they  not  ? 

In  the  street  again,  we  find  that  the  city  is  full  of  trees,  which 
make  a  cool  shade.  The  locust-tree  prevails,  with  its  fragrant 
white  blossoms,  and  the  birds  are  singing  gayly  in  the  branches. 
At  night,  the  frogs  croak  loudly,  because  there  are  many  large 
swamps  which  are  full  of  frogs.  There  are  a  great  many  wells  in 
the  city,  but  the  water  is  bad;  therefore  the  people  bring  most  of 
their  water  from  “  Fresh-water  Pond,'’  out  in  the  country,  a  mile 
or  more  from  the  Battery.  You  very  often  meet  a  water-cart,  sell¬ 
ing  water  for  a  penny  a  gallon,  at  the  doors  of  the  houses. 

There  are  not  many  private  carriages  yet  used,  but  we  can  get 
an  “  Italian  chaise,”  a  comfortable  vehicle  with  two  wheels,  and 
drive  out  of  town.  We  go  past  the  fine  church  with  a  tall  steeple 
called  “  Trinity,”  and  past  King’s  College,  which  is  a  grand  new 
college  just  built.  It  is  a  very  short  drive  before  we  are  in  the 
broad  open  country,  with  cows  and  sheep  feeding  all  about.  At 
night,  the  herdsman  comes,  blows  his  horn  loudly,  and  all  the  cattle 
follow  him  back  through  the  streets  of  the  town,  and  he  leaves  them 
each  at  the  owner’s  door  till  the  next  morning.  When  we  have 
driven  far  enough,  we  can  go  back  through  the  side  streets,  which 
are  filled  with  children  on  their  way  from  school.  Although  this  is 
an  English  town,  you  hear  almost  as  much  Dutch  spoken  as  Eng¬ 
lish.  The  children’s  names,  too,  Peter  Ryckman,  Catharina  Van- 
dam,  Hans  Jacobs,  Anthony  Jansen,  these  are  not  like  the  names 
you  hear  in  Boston.  There  are  English  names,  too,  of  course,  be¬ 
cause  for  many  years  the  English  have  been  peopling  New  York,  and 
the  names  of  Livingston,  Jay,  and  Murray  are  heard  among  those  of 
Holland  extraction.  The  names  of  the  streets,  however,  are  largely 
Dutch,  and  you  can  almost  read  the  history  of  the  town  in  the 
names  at  its  street  corners.  The  houses  of  the  rich  English  resi¬ 
dents  and  those  of  the  wealthier  Dutch,  have  stately  mahogany  fur¬ 
niture,  and  stores  of  silver  and  china,  while  their  dress  is  even  more 
gorgeous  than  in  the  Puritan  cities. 

You  can  see  plainly,  however,  that  the  earliest  settlers  of  this 


' 


: 


I 


A  TOUR  IN  AMERICA. 


181 


growing  metropolis  have  impressed  their  characteristics  strongly 
upon  it.  Even  in  their  amusements  and  occupations  you  see  this. 
Their  chief  summer  recreation  is  in  forming  sailing  parties  up  the 
Hudson,  where  they  go  to  eat  turtle-soup,  which  is  made  in  great 
perfection  there.  They  have  no  Thanksgiving  Day,  but  “  New 
Year’s  ”  they  keep  with  great  festivities,  and  the  custom  of  making 
New  Year's  calls  and  presents  is  celebrated  most  gayly  among  the 
Hollanders. 

Oysters  have  never  before  been  known  so  plentiful  and  cheap  as  in 
New  York.  They  are  largely  used  by  the  poorest  classes,  because 
they  are  so  cheap.  Truly,  this  city  seems  a  goodly  one  to  dwell 
in,  does  it  not  ?  We  feel  quite  sure  it  will  be  one  day  a  large  city. 

Albany,  up  the  Hudson,  is  also  growing  rapidly,  and  even  more 
than  New  York  is  like  a  town  in  Holland.  But  we  cannot  stop  to 
visit  it  now.  We  must  go  on  to  Philadelphia.  We  shall  go  by 
stage-coach  through  New  Jersey,  traveling  over  a  pleasant  country 
dotted  with  farms,  very  green  and  fertile.  Many  of  the  old  Swedish 
settlements  remain,  and  their  comfortable  stone  farm-houses  are  seen, 
overtopped  by  the  large  barns  and  granaries.  Orchards  of  peaches 
and  cherries  border  the  road.  We  can  climb  the  fences  anywhere 
and  help  ourselves  to  fruit.  The  owner  will  find  no  fault.  Every¬ 
thing  is  abundant  in  this  new  country,  and  there  are  not  travelers 
enough  to  make  trespass  laws  necessary. 

Three  days’  journey  brings  us  to  Philadelphia,  and  we  will  go  to 
the  London  Coffee  House  on  High  Street  and  get  breakfast.  The 
streets  are'not  crooked  here,  as  in  Boston.  William  Penn  was  very 
careful  about  the  appearance  of  his  new  city,  and  it  was  laid  out  in 
broad  squares,  with  streets  crossing  each  other  at  right  angles. 
When  the  city  was  first  built,  they  chopped  down  trees  to  mark 
where  a  street  was  to  be  cut  through.  Sometimes  it  was  a  walnut- 
tree,  sometimes  a  chestnut.  “  Penn’s  woods  ”  bore  a  great  variety 
of  trees.  So  the  streets  were  called  “  Chestnut,”  “  Walnut,” 
“  Elm,”  after  the  stumps  which  had  marked  them,  and  Philadelphia 
streets  continue  to  be  named  for  trees,  just  as  those  in  New  York 
are  named  for  its  early  settlers. 

Of  all  the  cities  of  the  New  World,  I  think  Philadelphia  is  the 
handsomest.  The  people,  too,  how  differently  they  look.  There  are 
a  few  dressed  in  the  bright  colors  which  are  the  fashion,  but  most 
wear  the  quiet  Quaker  colors,  —  drab,  pearl  grays,  and  delicate 
brown.  The  women,  like  Jenny  Wren,  wear  plain  brown  or  drab 


182 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


gowns,  “  and  never  go  too  fine.”  With  their  large  bonnets,  which 
shade  their  eyes,  and  keep  their  faces  smooth  and  unwrinkled, 
they  look  very  sweet  and  peaceful.  The  white  muslin  crossed  over 
their  breasts  is  like  drifted  snow.  The  men,  with  broad  hats  and 
long  drab  coats,  look  much  as  William  Penn  did  eighty  years  ago. 

The  houses,  like  the  owners,  are  substantial,  but  quiet  and  un¬ 
pretending.  There  are  many  brick  houses,  for  this  colony  is  rich 
in  clay,  and  they  began  very  early  to  practice  brick-making. 

The  state-house  in  Philadelphia  is  an  imposing  brick  building, 
and  the  citizens  are  very  proud  of  it.  A  great  bell,  the  largest 
bell  in  all  the  country,  has  just  been  put  up  in  the  steeple  of  the 
state-house,  whose  grand  peal  is  soon  to  announce  to  the  world 
that  the  Americans  have  declared  their  independence  from  the  rule 
of  Great  Britain. 

Before  we  leave  Philadelphia,  I  want  to  tell  you  about  one  of 
the  most  remarkable  men  who  was  ever  born  in  America,  and  give 
you  some  idea  of  his  character  and  good  works.  This  man  is 
Benjamin  Franklin.  He  was  born  in  Boston,  but  when  only  a 
youth  he  came  to  Philadelphia  to  make  it  his  home.  When  he 
first  landed  there  his  pocket  contained  a  dollar  and  a  few  cents,  his 
only  capital.  Not  his  only  capital  either,  for  he  had  beside  that 
his  head  and  hands,  and  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  printer’s 
trade.  You  have  heard,  doubtless,  how  he  bought  three  large  rolls 
at  the  baker’s,  and  walked  up  the  city  streets,  eating  one  of  them, 
while  he  carried  the  others,  one  under  each  arm. 

He  went  to  work  at  once  setting  type  in  a  printer’s  office,  and  in 
a  year  went  to  England,  from  whence  he  returned  to  Philadelphia, 
to  edit  a  newspaper  of  his  own.  He  was  never  so  busy  with  his  own 
affairs  that  he  could  not  interest  himself  in  those  of  others.  He 
started  a  debating  society  for  the  discussion  of  all  the  topics  of  the 
day,  in  which  he  induced  other  young  men  to  take  part.  He  organ¬ 
ized  a  public  library.  He  originated  the  plan  for  the  University  of 
Pennsylvania,  now  a  flourishing  institution.  Everywhere  the  town 
shows  some  monument  of  his  intellect  and  practical  energy.  Noth¬ 
ing  is  too  high,  or  too  low,  to  interest  this  great  man.  He  has  made 
experiments  to  prove  that  lightning  and  electricity  are  the  same 
forces,  and  has  just  invented  the  lightning  rod,  to  diminish  the 
dangers  of  accident.  He  has  also  introduced  a  welcome  inmate  into 
the  parlors  of  Philadelphia  —  a  new  stove,  called  the  “  Franklin,” 
the  best  heater  yet  in  use.  From  lightning-rods  and  stoves,  humble 


A  TOUR  IN  AMERICA. 


183 


instruments  of  blessing  to  man,  which  he  leaves  his  studies  in 
science  to  produce,  he  has  turned  his  clear  head  to  politics,  and  is 
now  on  an  embassy  to  London,  intrusted  by  four  colonies  with  the 
management  of  their  affairs  in  the  mother-country.  You  will  hear 
him  often  mentioned  as  this  history  goes  on,  and  you  will  hear  only 
good  of  him.  That  plain  house  in  High  Street  is  his,  and  his  duti¬ 
ful  wife  is  now  fitting  and  furnishing  it  for  his  return.  She  writes 
him  to  bring  home  from  England  some  new  table-cloths,  and  some 
panes  of  glass  to  set  in  a  closet  door  ;  and  tells  him  she  shall  not 
drive  up  the  nails  for  the  pictures  till  he  comes  home,  because  she 
wants  him  to  see  that  they  are  just  right.  So  you  see  this  great 
man,  who  founds  libraries  and  universities,  and  makes  a  familiar  of 
the  lightning,  can  attend  to  as  small  an  affair  as  the  driving  up  of 
picture  hooks. 

In  all  Philadelphia,  at  this  time  the  handsomest  city  in  these 
colonies,  I  find  nothing  so  well  worth  seeing  as  Benjamin  Franklin, 
and  since  he  is  gone  away,  we  will  take  our  luggage  and  pack  to 
Virginia. 

If  we  measure  by  the  growth  of  Boston  or  New  York,  we  must 
expect  Jamestown  in  Virginia  to  be  larger  than  either  of  these 
cities,  since  it  is  several  years  older.  But  the  colony  of  Virginia 
has  had  a  different  kind  of  growth  from  Massachusetts  or  New 
York.  You  remember  how  the  settlers  scattered  about  at  first, 
selecting  their  homes  wherever  the  site  pleased  them,  and  cultivat¬ 
ing  large  farms  of  tobacco,  which  is  sent  to  be  sold  in  England. 
It  has  not  been  their  custom  to  build  up  large  towns  for  commerce 
and  manufactures,  like  Massachusetts  and  New  York,  and  in  jour¬ 
neying  through  Virginia  you  will  see  here  and  there  a  planter’s 
house  with  great,  hospitable  porch,  and  wide,  open  front  door,  inside 
which  you  are  made  heartily  welcome,  but  you  will  see  few  of  the 
fast  growing  towns  and  villages  which  are  scattered  all  over  New 
England.  All  about  the  planter’s  large  house  are  little  cabins  in 
which  swarm  negro  babies  and  their  mothers.  The  men  are  out  at 
work  in  the  tobacco  fields.  These  two  products,  tobacco  and  negro 
slaves,  make  the  wealth  of  Virginia,  and  just  now  her  planters  are 
very  rich,  and  some  of  them  live  like  princes.  We  have  seen  a  good 
many  black  slaves  in  Philadelphia,  and  a  few  in  New  England,  but 
here  in  Virginia  all  the  work  is  done  by  blacks.  These  people  have 
multiplied  exceedingly  since  the  year  1620,  when  the  Dutch  traders 
landed  twenty  Africans  in  Virginia.  Now  this  colony  not  only  has 


184 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


negroes  as  many  as  she  can  use,  but  sells  them  to  the  other  colonies. 
Georgia,  which  was  at  first  opposed  to  the  introduction  of  slave  labor, 
has  now  for  several  years  been  holding  slaves,  many  of  whom  she 
imported  from  Virginia. 

I  have  told  you  the  Virginia  planter  lives  like  a  prince.  I  have  a 
picture  of  one  of  them,  taken  about  this  time.  He  wears  a  crimson 
velvet  coat  embroidered  with  gold;  silver-gray  satin  waistcoat  richly 
wrought  with  gold  figures ;  a  green  silk  sash,  white  silk  stockings, 
green  velvet  breeches,  and  diamond  shoe-buckles.  Round  his  neck 
he  wears  a  jew’eled  locket,  with  a  portrait  in  little  of  King  George 
II.  He  owns  some  of  the  largest  tobacco  fields  in  Virginia.  His 
sons  are  sent  to  England  to  be  educated,  and  his  daughters  have 
been  presented  at  court  in  London.  When  he  is  in  Virginia  he 
rides  to  Williamsburg,  which  is  the  capital  and  the  nearest  large 
town,  in  a  great  coach  with  yellow  wheels,  drawn  by  six  horses. 
About  Christmas  time  they  have  jolly  festivities  in  his  house.  He 
invites  his  neighbors,  and  they  have  a  grand  Christmas  dinner,  and 
in  the  evening  music  and  dancing.  The  young  ladies  play  the 
harpsichord  (they  do  not  have  pianos,  but  the  harpsichord  or  the 
spinet  makes  very  good  music  instead),  and  the  young  gentlemen 
play  the  violin,  and  there  are  merry  times. 

The  Virginia  gentleman  is  also  a  great  sportsman,  and  hunting 
and  fishing  are  his  chief  amusements.  Nearly  all  visitors  to  the  col¬ 
onies  think  the  Virginia  planter  is  most  of  all  to  be  envied.  ’  He 
has  a  contempt,  quite  strongly  expressed,  for  the  New  Englanders. 
He  says  they  are  too  stingy,  and  think  too  much  of  their  money. 
But  the  fact  is,  the  planter  is  spending  his  money  too  fast.  He  is 
wasting  his  soil  and  putting  nothing  into  it  for  the  tobacco  he  takes 
out ;  and  while  the  New  Englander  is  spending  his  money  in  col¬ 
leges  and  public  schools  and  manufactories,  Virginia  is  sending  hers 
to  England  to  bring  over  big  lumbering  coaches  with  yellow  wheels, 
gay  dresses,  and  rich  furniture  which  will  wear  out  and  leave  noth¬ 
ing  behind. 

There  are  noble  men  in  the  Virginia  colony  whose  names  we  are 
sure  to  hear  mentioned  hereafter.  There  is  George  Washington,  who 
did  such  good  service  in  the  French  war.  He  has  married  a  rich 
widow,  and  lives  on  his  great  estates  at  Mount  Vernon  in  Fairfax 
County,  on  the  Potomac  River.  He  is  occupied  in  managing  his 
affairs,  and  spending  his  leisure  time  in  hunting  and  fishing,  for  he  is 
an  ardent  sportsman.  There  is  the  stirring  young  orator,  Patrick 


A  TOUR  IN  AMERICA. 


185 


Henry,  whose  eloquence  is  the  talk  of  all  Virginia.  The  two  rising 
lawyers,  Richard  Henry  Lee  and  Peyton  Randolph,  are  known  by 
everybody.  There  is  another  young  man  not  so  well  known,  Mr. 
Thomas  Jefferson,  now  at  William  and  Mary’s  College  in  Williams¬ 
burg,  who  is  certain  to  make  his  mark  one  of  these  days.  If  great 
men  can  make  a  community  thriving,  Virginia  is  rich  in  material 
for  prosperity. 

The  Carolinas  and  Georgia  are  rich  in  tobacco  and  rice  planta¬ 
tions,  and  down  in  the  swampy  fields  where  the  rice  grows,  you  will 
see  bands  of  black  slaves  at  work.  The  Carolina  planter  is  not  as 
rich  as  the  Virginian,  but  he  is  prosperous,  and  the  towns  of  Charles¬ 
ton  in  South  Carolina,  and  Savannah,  which  good  Mr.  Oglethorpe 
laid  out  so  carefully,  are  handsome  cities. 

As  yet  they  have  no  export  in  the  Carolinas  which  rivals  tobacco 
in  the  riches  it  brings  to  the  planters, 
young  girl  of  eighteen,  named  Eliza 
Lucas,  was  managing  a  plantation  all  by 
herself  in  South  Carolina.  Her  father 
sent  her  some  cotton  seeds  from  the  West 
Indies,  and  she  planted  them  and  had  a 
good  crop.  She  tried  also  raising  the 
indigo  plant,  and  found  that  successful, 
and  when  she  married  Mr.  Pinckney  two 
or  three  years  later,  she  interested  him 
in  her  attempts  at  planting  cotton  and 
indigo.  Already  cotton  is  an  article  of 
growing  export  from  Charleston,  and  the 
time  will  come  when  all  other  exports 
will  sink  into  nothing  besides  this  king 
of  products,  and  it  will  rule  trade  with 
a  rod  of  iron. 

Well,  our  journey  is  ended.  We  have 
made  a  rapid  tour  of  the  king’s  colonies  in  North  America,  and  will 
take  return  ship  to  London,  from  whence  we  came.  Daring  this 
year  (1760)  his  majesty  King  George  II.  has  yielded  up  his  crown 
and  sceptre,  and  gone  to  sleep  in  the  royal  tomb  at  Westminster 
Abbey.  His  grandson,  George  III.,  is  just  crowned  King  of  Eng¬ 
land,  and  as  we  sail  away,  guns  are  fired  off  from  the  fort  in  Charles¬ 
ton  harbor,  in  honor  of  the  new  monarch.  From  all  sides  go  up 
the  cry,  “  The  King  is  dead.  Long  live  the  King  !  ”  Let  us  see  in 
the  next  chapter  how  we  like  this  new  king. 


But  twenty  years  ago  a 


186 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV. 


UPRISING  OF  THE  COLONIES. 

The  Now  King.  — Royal  Treasury  empty.  —  Taxation  without  Representation.  —  Stirring  Scene 
in  Boston  State-house.  —  The  People  and  the  Stamp  Act.  —  Speech  of  Patrick  Henry.— 
Our  Defenders  in  England. 

The  year  1761  beheld  a  new  monarch  ascend  the  throne  of  Eng¬ 
land.  He  was  a  young  man  of  twenty  years,  the  grandson  of 
George  II.,  the  preceding  king.  England  was  just  emerging  from 
the  clouds  of  her  war  with  France.  The  war  had  been  long  and  ex¬ 
pensive,  and  the  English  government  wanted 
money  very  much,  so  much  that  they  were  not 
particular  about  the  means  by  which  they  got 
it. 

The  young  king  had  not  the  best  of  advisers. 
William  Pitt,  a  man  of  great  intellect  and  elo¬ 
quence,  who  had  been  the  secretary  of  state  in 
his  grandfather’s  reign,  did  not  gain  the  ear  of 
William  Pitt.  the  new  monarch,  and  his  favorite  counselors 

foolishly  advised  him  to  tax  the  American  colonies  to  raise  some 
money  to  put  into  the  royal  coffers. 

The  American  colonies  were  worn  out  and  tired  to  death  with 
war.  They  had  really  done  more  than  half  the  work  of  driving  the 
French  out  of  Canada.  They  felt  that  if  ever  the  “mother-country” 
ought  to  be  proud  of  her  children  over  here,  and  tender  of  them,  it 
should  be  after  they  had  unfurled  the  English  flag  above  the  walls 
of  Louisburg,  Duquesne,  and  Quebec.  Besides,  the  American  col¬ 
onies  had  never  been  an  expense  to  the  crown  of  England.  On  the 
contrary,  they  had  paid  their  own  way  almost  from  the  first,  and 
were  really  valuable  acquisitions  to  the  power  of  England.  So  that 
the  proposition  to  tax  them  without  allowing  them  to  have  any 
voice  in  the  matter,  was  not  very  agreeable,  as  you  can  fancy.  To 
state  the  matter  in  six  words,  “  They  objected  to  Taxation  without 
Representation 

Now  do  you  know  just  what  that  means  ?  “  Taxation  without 

representation  ?  ”  If  not,  I  shall  be  obliged  to  tell  you,  because  it 
is  quite  necessary  you  should  understand  it. 

A  “  tax”  is  a  sum  which  must  be  paid  on  any  article  used  by  the 
people  who  are  taxed.  It  may  be  tea  or  sugar  or  tobacco,  or  any 


UPRISING  OF  THE  COLONIES. 


187 


other  article  imported  into  a  country,  and  the  tax  may  be  five  cents, 
or  ten  cents,  or  any  number  of  cents  a  pound.  If  it  is  silk,  or  any 
fabric  for  wearing  apparel,  the  tax  would  be  so  many  cents  on  a 
yard.  All  the  teas  or  sugar  or  silk,  or  any  other  taxable  article, 
must  be  weighed  or  measured  when  it  comes  into  a  port,  and  the 
people  pay  so  much  extra  on  each  pound  or  yard,  which  goes  into 
the  coffers  of  the  government. 

When  this  country  is  taxed  (and  we  always  have  some  taxed 
articles  to  furnish  money  to  the  government)  we  send  our  represent¬ 
atives  to  Congress  to  make  laws  about  the  taxes,  and  choose  the 
men  whom  we  believe  worthy  of  trust.  These  men  represent  us  in 
making  laws,  and  we  are  willing  to  pay  such  taxes  as  they  decide 
are  wise  and  proper.  This  is  taxation  with  representation. 

But  the  American  colonies  had  no  votes  in  England.  They  did 
not  send  any  representatives  over  to  the  great  English  Parliament, 
where  laws  were  made  regulating  taxes  and  everything  else  in  Eng¬ 
land.  Therefore,  when  the  English  minister,  Sir  Richard  Grenville, 
said  in  effect,  “  We  are  now  going  to  pass  a  law  to  tax  you,  and  you 
must  submit  to  it,”  the  blood  of  the  colonies  boiled  fiercely  with  rage. 
They  said,  “  We  will  not  submit  to  it.  We  tax  our  black  African 
slaves,  and  take  their  earnings  without  allowing  them  to  have  any 
voice  in  the  matter,  because  they  are  our  slaves.  But  we  are  not 
slaves.  You  mean  to  treat  us  as  if  we  Avere,  but  we  will  NOT  endure 
it.  We  will  never  bear  taxation  without  representation .” 

Previous  to  the  accession  of  George  III.  there  had  been  laws 
passed  taxing  various  kinds  of  merchandise  in  the  colonies,  but 
these  laws  Avere  generally  ignored,  and  were  considered  worthless. 
The  first  step  the  English  crown  took  towards  this  tyranny  they 
were  planning  Avas  to  send  over  here  legal  documents  called  “  Writs 
of  Assistance.”  These  Avrits  commanded  the  king’s  officers  to 
search  anywhere,  in  a  man’s  store  or  his  house,  for  articles  taxed 
under  the  old  laAvs,  and  seize  upon  it,  in  the  king’s  name.  One  old 
tax  which  had  not  been  enforced  avus  on  sugar  and  molasses.  It  Avas 
proposed  to  put  that  in  force,  and  make  the  people  pay  it.  The 
worst  feature  of  the  writs  of  assistance  Avas,  that  the  king’s  officers 
were  authorized  to  oblige  the  colonial  sheriffs  and  toAvn  officers  to 
assist  in  breaking  into  a  man’s  house,  and  search  for  his  taxable 
goods. 

There  was  a  stirring  scene  in  the  old  Boston  state-house  in  Feb¬ 
ruary,  1761.  The  council  chamber  was  filled  to  overfloAving.  Five 


188 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


judges,  with  Governor  Hutchinson,  the  chief-justice  of  Massachu¬ 
setts,  at  their  head,  were  seated  in  state,  grandly  dressed  in  long 
flowing  robes  of  scarlet  broadcloth,  with  great  wigs  on  their  heads, 
which  made  them  look  as  big  as  bushel  baskets.  At  a  long  table 
covered  with  papers  and  law  books,  sat  all  the  lawyers  of  Middlesex 
County  in  their  black  gowns  and  wigs.  At  each  end  of  the  room 
was  a  picture  in  a  splendid  gilt  frame,  of  the  two  sovereigns,  Kings 
Charles  II.  and  James  II.  The  scene  was  like  a  grand  picture  itself, 
and  there  were  heads  there  better  worth  putting  on  canvas,  than 
the  reckless  Charles  II.  and  his  contemptible  brother  James. 

This  assembly  was  gathered  to  hear  an  argument  from  a  young 
Massachusetts  lawyer,  James  Otis,  against  the  writs  of  assistance. 

It  was  a  speech  that  fired  every  American 
who  heard  it,  and  sent  him  away  with 
“Liberty”  ringing  in  his  ears.  John 
Adams,  afterwards  a  president  of  the 
United  States,  heard  Otis  speak,  and  de¬ 
clared  “  American  independence  was  then 
and  there  born.”  It  was  a  speech  that 
silenced  the  king's  officers.  They  dared 
not  mention  “writs  of  assistance”  that 
day.  I  think  Governor  Hutchinson,  who 
was  an  American  born,  must  have  writhed 
in  his  scarlet  gown,  as  he  sat  under  the  blazing  eloquence  of  this 
glorious  orator. 

It  would  be  a  long  story,  and  tiresome,  if  I  followed  out  every 
act  by  which  the  English  attempted  to  force  the  colonies  to  accept 
their  will  as  law.  I  shall  only  mention  the  most  notable  acts,  the 
first  of  which  is  called  the  “  Stamp  Act.”  This  was  a  taxed  paper, 
and  bore  a  royal  stamp .  The  colonies  were  ordered  to  use  it  on  all 
business  or  legal  contracts.  Nothing  would  be  legal,  not  even  a 
marriage  ceremony,  if  the  contract  were  not  on  stamped  paper. 

The  people  all  over  the  country  were  very  angry  when  this 
stamped  paper  was  sent  here.  Of  all  of  them  Boston  was  a  little 
the  worst.  The  Boston  people  would  not  buy  the  paper.  They 
would  not  get  married,  not  buy  or  sell  anything,  or  do  any  business 
which  obliged  them  to  use  it.  They  made  a  great  figure  of  straw 
dressed  up  in  a  red  coat  to  look  like  Mr.  Oliver,  the  royal  officer 
who  had  the  stamped  paper  to  sell,  and  hung  the  figure  on  a  tree  on 
Boston  Common,  which  is  since  called  “  The  old  Liberty  Tree.” 


James  Otis. 


UPRISING  OF  THE  COLONIES. 


189 


They  broke  into  Governor  Hutchinson’s  house,  and  made  great 
havoc  there,  burning  his  books  and  papers.  I  am  sorry  for  that, 
for  Governor  Hutchinson  was  a  man  of  ability,  who  wrote  a  very 
good  history  of  the  colonies,  and  he  lost  there  many  valuable  papers 
which  would  be  interesting  now  for  us  to  read. 

In  New  Hampshire,  when  the  news  of  the  passage  of  the  stamp 
act  was  made  public,  the  bells  were  tolled,  and  the  people  summoned 
to  a  funeral.  A  coffin  with  the  inscription,  “  Liberty  —  died  1765,” 
was  paraded  through  the  streets.  It  was  carried  to  the  grave,  guns 
were  fired  over  it,  and  a  funeral  oration  spoken.  Just  as  they  were 
about  to  bury  it,  it  was  declared  that  there  were  still  signs  of  life ; 
the  coffin  was  again  carried  through  the  streets  with  “  Liberty  alive 
again,”  inscribed  upon  it.  These  things  show  the  spirit  of  the  peo¬ 
ple,  and  that  they  had  no  idea  of  burying  their  liberties  without  a 
struggle. 

In  New  York  city  they  hung  an  effigy  of  the  governor,  burned 
up  his  carriage,  the 
only  piece  of  his 
property  they  could 
lay  hold  of,  and  be¬ 
haved  as  unreason¬ 
ably  as  mobs  usu¬ 
ally  do.  All  over 
the  colonies  a  so¬ 
ciety  called  “  Sons 
of  Liberty  ”  was 
formed  by  the  men 
who  meant  to  fight 
rather  than  yield. 

In  Virginia  they 
held  a  meeting 
which  was  ad¬ 
dressed  by  Patrick 
Henry,  a  spirited 
young  Virginian. 

He  spoke  so  boldly 
for  freedom  that 
the  older  men  were 
alarmed.  When  he  introduced  some  resolutions  claiming  that  the 
American  colonists  were  free-born  Englishmen,  and  to  tax  them 


190 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


without  their  consent  was  tyranny,  there  was  a  terrible  struggle 
over  their  passage.  During  the  debate  Patrick  Henry  rose. 

“  Cassar  had  his  Brutus,”  he  cried,  “  Charles  the  First  his  Crom¬ 
well,  and  George  the  Third”  — 

Here  all  the  timid  listeners  who  thought  this  sounded  like  a 
threat  against  the  king’s  life,  began  to  shout,  “Treason  !  Treason  !  ” 

Patrick  Henry  waited  till  they  were  quiet,  and  then  he  ended 
impressively,  “and  George  the  Third  —  may  profit  by  their  exam¬ 
ple.  If  that  be  treason,  make  the  most  of  it.” 


Benjamin  Franklin  had  been  sent  to  England  from  Philadelphia, 
to  use  his  influence  against  taxation.  He  found  a  strong  party  on 
his  side  in  England.  William  Pitt,  the  great  English  statesman  ; 
Colonel  Barre,  who  had  fought  here  in  the  French  wars ;  Edmund 
Burke,  the  great  jurist  and  orator;  the  lord  mayor,  and  many  of 
the  citizens  of  London,  all  sympathized  with  the  colonies.  Pitt 
made  a  speech  in  which  he  said,  “We  are  told  America  is  obstinate ; 
America  is  almost  in  open  rebellion.  I  rejoice  that  America  has  re¬ 
sisted.  Three  millions  of  people,  so  dead  to  all  feelings  of  liberty, 
as  voluntarily  to  submit  to  be  slaves,  would  have  been  fit  instru¬ 
ments  to  make  slaves  of  all  the  rest.” 

When  Mr.  Charles  Townsend  asked  in  the  English  parliament, 
“  Will  these  Americans,  children  planted  by  our  care,  nourished 
by  our  indulgence,  and  protected  by  our  arms,  will  they  grudge  their 


Patrick  Henry  before  the  Assembly. 


MORE  OPPRESSION.  191 

mite  to  relieve  us  from  the  heavy  weight  of  the  burden  which  we 
lie  under  ?  ”  Colonel  Barre  started  to  his  feet  and  said  :  — 

“  They  planted  by  your  care !  Your  oppression  planted  them  in 
America.  They  fled  from  tyranny  to  a  then  uncultivated  and  in¬ 
hospitable  country,  where  they  exposed  themselves  to  almost  all  the 
hardships  to  which  human  beings  are  liable. 

“They  nourished  by  your  indulgence !  They  grew  up  by  your 
neglect  of  them.  ... 

“  They  protected  by  your  arms  !  They  have  nobly  taken  up  arms 
in  your  defense,  have  exerted  their  valor  for  the  defense  of  a  coun¬ 
try  whose  frontier  was  drenched  with  blood,  while  its  interior 
yielded  its  little  savings  to  your  emolument.  And  believe  me,  re¬ 
member  that  I  this  day  told  you,  the  same  spirit  of  freedom  that 
actuated  that  people  at  first,  will  accompany  them  still.” 

Hurrah  for  Pitt  and  Colonel  Barre!  Next  fourth  of  July  re¬ 
member  to  give  them  three  extra  cheers. 

O 


CHAPTER  XXXV. 

MORE  OPPRESSION. 

Daughters  of  Liberty.  —  Redcoats  in  Boston.  —  Boston  Massacre.  —  Boy  Rebels.  —  Tax  on 
Tea.  —  First  Continental  Congress.  —  The  Men  who  attended  it.  —  Speech  of  William 
Pitt.  —  Whigs  and  Tories.  —  The  Patriotic  Barber.  —  Yankee  Doodle. 

The  women  were  not  less  ardent  and  patriotic  than  the  men.  As 

the  men  had  formed  themselves  into  com¬ 
panies  called  Sons  of  Liberty,  they  also 
formed  an  organization  called  “  Daughters 
of  Liberty,”  and  pledged  themselves  not  to 
buy  any  goods  imported  from  England. 
They  formed  “  spinning  societies  ”  to  make 
their  own  cotton  and  linen,  and  they  wove 
cloth  for  their  fathers,  husbands,  and  sons 
to  wear.  The  ladies  met  together  and  had 
matches  to  see  who  could  spin  fastest. 
One  party  of  young  girls  met  at  the  house 
of  their  minister,  in  Boston,  to  spend  the 


hundred  and  thirty  skeins  of  yarn,  the 
fruit  of  their  afternoon’s  labor.  I  can  as¬ 
sure  you  these  were  stirring  times. 


afternoon  in  a  spinning  match,  and  when 
they  left,  presented  the  minister  with  two 


192 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


In  1766  England  repealed  the  stamp  act.  But  before  the  rejoic¬ 
ing  was  over  in  America,  she  began  again  her  encroachments  on  our 
liberty.  Sir  Richard  Grenville  was  out  of  office,  and  Charles 
Townshend,  who  succeeded  him,  was  determined  the  colonies  should 
submit.  By  this  time  England  began  really  to  care  more  about 
making  the  colonies  submit  than  she  cared  for  the  tax.  It  began 
now  to  be  a  trial  to  see  which  should  give  in. 

The  thing  which  most  outraged  Boston,  about  this  time,  was  the 
fact  that  a  large  detachment  of  red-coated  British  soldiers  were  sent 
there  and  quartered  for  a  time  in  Faneuil  Hall.  That  was  too 
much  to  bear.  They  hated  the  soldiers,  and  it  was  a  double 
oifense  to  put  them  in  Faneuil  Hall,  where  indignation  meetings 
about  the  stamp  act  had  been  held.  Already  Faneuil  Hall  was 
called  fondly  u  The  Cradle  of  Liberty.’’ 


Faneuil  Hall. 

The  soldiers  were  hooted  at  and  scouted  at  by  the  very  boys  in 
the  streets.  I  know  they  did  not  have  a  pleasant  life  of  it.  At 
length  the  hatred  broke  out  in  an  open  quarrel,  and  three  citizens  of 
Boston  were  killed  by  the  soldiers.  This  was  called  the  “  Boston 
Massacre,”  and  the  public  rage  was  hot  against  the  soldiers. 

Even  the  children  shared  the  general  feeling,  and  were  as  patri¬ 
otic  as  their  fathers  and  mothers.  One  winter’s  day  a  party  of  boys 


MORE  OPPRESSION. 


193 


were  building  a  snow  fort  on  Boston  Common.  Some  idle  soldiers 
standing  about,  battered  it  down.  As  the  boys  had  suffered  fre¬ 
quent  annoyance  from  the  soldiers,  they  determined  to  go  in  a  body 
to  General  Gage  (who  had  been  sent  over  to  take  Governor  Hutchin¬ 
son’s  place),  and  complain  of  the  way  in  which  they  had  been  treated. 
After  they  had  laid  their  wrongs  before  the  general,  he  said  impa¬ 
tiently,  “  Have  your  fathers  been  teaching  you  rebellion  and  sent 
you  here  to  show  it  ?  ” 

“  Nobody  sent  us,  sir,”  answered  the  boy  who  led  the  others. 
“  But  your  soldiers  have  insulted  us  ;  thrown  down  our  forts  ;  called 
us  young  rebels.  We  will  bear  it  no  more.” 

Gage  laughingly  promised  them  redress,  and  sent  them  away  tri¬ 
umphant.  Then  he  said  to  an  officer  beside  him,  — 

“  Even  the  children  here  draw  in  a  love  of  liberty  in  the  air  they 
breathe.” 

In  1773  a  tax  on  tea  was  passed  by  England.  The  people  were 
very  fond  of  tea,  and  a  large  quantity  was  annually  used  by  the 
colonies.  All  over  New  England  tea-drinkings  were  in  fashion, 
where  the  women  met  to  knit  and  sew,  and  ended  with  a  social  cup 
of  tea.  “  They  will  rather  pay  a  small  sum  than  give  up  their 
beloved  beverage,”  argued  the  British  statesmen. 

The  British  statesmen  reckoned  without  their  host.  Every  patri¬ 
otic  woman  in  America  was  willing  to  drink  milk  and  water  to  the 
end  of  her  days  rather  than  give  in.  They  steeped  all  kinds  of  herbs, 
made  pennyroyal,  catnip,  and  sage  tea,  and  pretended  it  tasted  very 
good  indeed,  but  not  an  ounce  of  real  Chinese  tea  would  any  loyal 
woman  use.  There  were  many  songs  written  about  this  odious  tea 
tax.  Here  is  a  verse  which  appeared  in  one  of  the  newspapers,  — 

“  O  Boston  wives  and  maids,  draw  near  and  see 
Our  delicate  Souchong  and  Hyson  tea; 

Buy  it,  my  charming  girls,  fair,  black,  or  brown, 

If  not,  we  ’ll  cut  your  throats  and  burn  your  town.” 

In  Boston,  they  heard  that  a  cargo  of  tea  was  to  be  landed. 
Night  after  night  the  liberty-loving  citizens  walked  up  and  down 
the  wharf  watching  for  the  coming  of  the  ship,  to  prevent  her  from 
landing  her  cargo.  When  a  ship-load  finally  got  into  the  harbor,  a 
party  of  men  disguised  like  Indians,  in  war-paint  and  feathers,  went 
on  board  ship  and  pitched  every  chest  of  it  into  the  water,  where  it 
quickly  sank  to  the  bottom.  There  it  rotted  under  the  waves, 
although  half  the  women  in  Boston  would  have  given  almost  any- 


194 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


thing  for  a  cup  of  that  very  tea,  if  they  could  have  had  it  without 
yielding  to  tyranny. 

The  English  merchants  made  their  tea  so  cheap  that  it  could  have 
been  bought  for  less  money  with  the  tax  than  it  had  been  sold  pre¬ 
viously  without  it.  That  made  no  difference.  It  was  not  two  or 
three  cents  a  pound  on  tea.  It  was  the  immortal  principle. 
41  Down  with  tyranny  !  Hurrah  for  liberty !  ” 

The  English  blood  was  up  in  England  as  well  as  in  America. 
Parliament  was  held  in  London,  and  they  talked  angrily  there  about 
the  “  unwarrantable  practices  in  America,”  and  especially  the  “out¬ 
rageous  behavior  of  Boston.” 

Then  they  passed  the  “  Boston  Port  Bill,”  shutting  up  the  port 
of  Boston,  so  that  no  commerce  could  come  there,  and  moving  the 
custom-house  to  Salem.  They  also  passed  a  law  taking  all  govern¬ 
ment  authority  from  the  colonies,  and  giving  it  entirely  to  the 
crown,  and  ordered  that  all  persons  committing  murder  should  be 
brought  over  to  England  to  be  tried.  That  was  to  protect  the  sol¬ 
diers  who  might  kill  a  rebellious  colonist  occasionally. 

This  was  worse  and  worse,  and  public  discontent  waxed  stronger 
and  stronger.  The  thirteen  colonies  met  in  their  assemblies,  and 
appointed  delegates  to  meet  in  Philadelphia  and  talk  the  matter 
over.  This  convention  is  known  as  the  “  First  Continental  Con¬ 
gress."  It  is  the  first  body  representing  the  colonies  that  ever  met 
on  the  American  continent.  It  was  the  germ  from  which  the 
United  States  grew  up.  There  were  fifty-two  members  in  all,  and 
I  believe  a  nobler  assembly  never  met  together  than  this  body  of 
men  who  sat  in  the  old  state-house  in  Philadelphia,  to  deliberate 
calmly  how  the  liberties  of  a  people  should  be  preserved. 

There  was  the  fiery  young  orator,  Patrick  Henry,  whose  words 
were  like  lightning  to  strike  tyranny  dumb.  There  were  the 
Adamses  of  Massachusetts :  John  Adams,  now  only  a  promising 
young  lawyer,  but  afterwards  to  be  rewarded  with  the  highest  hon¬ 
ors  his  country  could  bestow  on  him  ;  Samuel  Adams,  whose  grand 
utterances  for  freedom  still  ring  through  the  years  like  bugle-notes. 
There  was  George  Washington,  the  hero  of  many  dangerous  battles, 
as  ready  now  to  fight  for  American  independence,  as  he  had  fought 
for  English  conquest ;  Richard  Henry  Lee  of  Virginia,  of  whom  it  is 
praise  enough  to  say  that  he  was  worthy  to  sit  beside  George  Wash¬ 
ington  and  Patrick  Henry  ;  Roger  Sherman  of  Connecticut,  who  had 
risen  from  the  shoemaker’s  to  the  judge’s  bench;  John  Jay  of  New 


MORE  OPPRESSION. 


195 


York,  the  blood  of  the  French  Huguenots  in  his  veins,  crying  out 
against  submission  to  tyrants  ;  and  Stephen  Hopkins  of  Rhode  Isl¬ 
and,  almost  seventy  years  old,  yet  as  much  in  love  with  liberty  as 
the  youngest  man  among  them. 


Samuel  Adams. 

[From  Copley’s  portrait  in  Faneuil  Ilall  ] 


Other  noble  names  were  there,  and  every  man  of  them  deserves 
to  be  crowned  with  immortal  honor.  For  remember,  that  to  meet 
thus  meant  danger  in  every  form.  If  they  decided  to  strike  the 
blow  for  liberty  and  were  unsuccessful,  their  names  would  be  dishon¬ 
ored  as  traitors,  their  families  reduced  to  poverty,  their  heads  would 
perhaps  fall  by  the  hand  of  the  common  executioner.  It  was  no 
ordinary  bravery  that  inspired  these  men.  It  was  a  higher  courage 
than  that  which  upholds  the  soldier  in  the  excitement  of  battle, 
when  the  shots  are  falling  round  him.  It  was  the  calm,  steadfast 
courage  of  reason  and  conscience. 


196 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


One  man  should  have  been  there  whose  name  does  not  appear. 
You  have  not  forgotten  James  Otis,  whose  voice  had  kindled  the 
first  flame  of  this  agitation  when  he  spoke  in  Boston  against  “  Writs 
of  Assistance.-'  He  would  have  been  of  this  noble  companv,  but 
five  years  before  he  had  met  one  of  the  tax-officers  in  a  coffee-house 
in  Boston,  and  a  dispute  arose,  in  which  the  officer  struck  him  such 
a  blow  on  the  head  that  he  was  severely  injured.  At  the  time  of 
this  Congress  he  was  hopelessly  insane  from  the  effects  of  this  in¬ 
jury  and  thus  America  lost  one  of  her  ablest  counselors  at  a  time 
when  she  needed  him  so  much.  He  lived  to  the  last  year  of  the 
war  of  the  Revolution  and  was  killed  by  lightning  as  he  stood  in  the 
door  of  his  house. 

This  Continental  Congress  passed  resolutions  approving  the  re¬ 
sistance  of  the  colonies  to  the  unjust  acts  of  England,  and  remon¬ 
strating  with  the  mother-country,  respectfully  yet  firmly,  against  her 
course.  This  remonstrance  contained  these  words  :  “  If  neither 
the  voice  of  justice,  the  dictates  of  law,  the  principles  of  the  con¬ 
stitution,  nor  the  dictates  of  humanity,  can  restrain  your  hands  from 
shedding  human  blood  in  such  an  impious  cause,  we  must  then  tell 
you  that  we  will  never  submit  to  be  hewers  of  wood ,  or  drawers  of 
water  for  any  ministry  or  nation  in  this  world.'’ 

When  William  Pitt  read  this  address,  he  said  to  Parliament, 

“You  will  be  powerless  either  to  convince  or  enslave  America . 

You  may,  no  doubt,  destroy  their  cities ;  you  may  cut  them  off 
from  the  superfluities,  perhaps  the  conveniences  of  life;  but  they 
will  still  despise  your  power,  for  they  have  still  remaining  their  for¬ 
ests,  and  their  liberty.'” 

It  was  plain  enough  that  the  struggle  was  close  at  hand.  The 
fact  is  the  people  here  had  been  getting  ready  to  be  a  free  nation 
ever  since  the  Pilgrims  landed  on  Plymouth  Rock.  If  England 
had  not  passed  the  stamp  act,  or  the  port  bill,  it  would  have 
turned  out  the  same  in  the  end.  Freedom  was  in  the  air  of  the 
New  World,  and  England  could  no  more  have  hoped  to  hold  these 
growing  colonies  as  vassals,  than  she  could  have  dammed  up  the 
Falls  of  Niagara  to  run  her  saw-mills. 

Now  the  colonies  began  to  call  out  their  citizens  to  form  companies 
of  militia,  and  practice  military  drill.  Old  muskets  that  had  figured 
in  Indian  wars  were  brought  out,  and  cleaned  and  polished  ;  gun¬ 
powder  and  bullets  were  hoarded  up ;  women  spun  yarn,  knit 
heavy  stockings,  and  wove  good  substantial  cloth  to  make  clothes 


MORE  OPPRESSION. 


IDT 

for  the  men.  There  were  many  tears  shed,  and  many  solemn 
prayers  sent  to  Heaven  ;  but  in  the  hearts  of  the  people  there  was 
but  one  thought  and  one  hope,  —  that  was  for  Freedom. 

Do  not  think,  however,  that  everybody  was  on  one  side.  There 
were  a  great  many  people  in  New  England,  Virginia,  New  York, 
and  the  Carolinas,  who  were  bitter  against  the  action  of  the  Conti¬ 
nental  Congress.  They  would  give  up  to  the  king  at  any  cost,  and 
they  denounced  the  rest  as  “  traitors  ”  and  “  rebels.”  These  people- 
who  stood  for  the  king  and  his  government  were  called  “  Tories,” 
or  royalists,  and  the  other  party  “  Whigs,”  or  rebels.  These  names, 
Tory  and  Whig,  were  borrowed  from  English  politics.1  Many  of 
the  American  newspapers  were  Tory,  and  remained  so  until  the 
cause  of  the  revolutionists  became  strong,  then  they  turned  about 
and  abused  the  English  as  much  as  any  one.  There  were  a  good 
many  Tories  persecuted  for  their  allegiance  to  the  king.  Some  of 
them  moved  to  Canada ;  some  of  them  kept  silent  and  took  as  little- 
part  as  they  could  ;  and  some  of  those  who  spoke  their  mind  freely, 
were  tarred  and  feathered,  and  ridden  on  rails,  and  treated  in  the 
unjust  and  foolish  manner  in  which  excited  mobs  will  treat  those 
who  disagree  with  them. 

The  lines  between  Tories  and  Whigs  were  closely  drawn  at  the 
beginning  of  the  year  1765.  The  Americans  demanded  to  know 
those  who  were  going  to  stand  for  liberty,  and  in  Boston  and  else¬ 
where  those  who  stood  for  the  king  did  not  have  a  very  pleasant 
time  of  it.  •  A  good  deal  of  tarring  and  feathering  was  done  about 
this  time,  and  many  Tories  got  broken  heads  and  bloody  noses  for 
speaking  up  for  the  king.  A  patriotic  barber  in  Boston  was  quietly 
shaving  a  customer,  and  had  just  got  half  his  face  shaved,  when  lie 
found  that  he  was  a  Tory.  He  threw  down  his  razor,  and  ordered 
him  out  of  his  shop.  The  poor  Tory  with  his  face  all  lathered,  one 
side  clean  shaven,  “  like  a  field  new  reaped  at  harvest  time,”  and 
the  other  side  with  a  bristling  beard,  was  forced  to  go  hunting 
through  the  streets  of  Boston  for  a  barber  who  was  devoted  to 
the  cause  of  George  III. 

The  Americans  opposed  to  the  king  and  his  measures  were  known 
as  Patriots,  Whigs,  Continentals,  and  lastly  as  Yankees,  a  term 
which  the  English  soldiers  took  up  in  derision.  The  English  soldiery 

1  Tory  was  from  an  Irish  word  signifying  a  “savage,”  but  had  come  to  mean  an  adherent 
of  the  king  and  his  measures.  Whig  came  from  a  Scotch  word,  meaning  a  “  drover,”  and 
finally  came  to  mean  those  who  believed  that  government  was  not  to  enslave  men,  but  to  serve, 
them.  It  was  first  applied  to  a  party  of  soldiers  in  Cromwell’s  time,  who  came  from  Scotland. 


198 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


and  their  sympathizers  in  America,  were  called  Tories,  Royalists, 
Britishers,  and  Regulars, — the  last  name  being  applied  to  their 
troops  to  distinguish  them  from  the  provincial  or  American  militia. 

The  English  bands  belonging  to  the  regular  troops  took  great  de¬ 
light  in  playing  an  air  called  “  Yankee  Doodle.”  It  was  played  in 
derision  of  the  Yankees,  but  has  since  become  our  most  popular 
national  tune.  The  patriots  accepted  the  term  Yankees,  as  one  of 
honor  rather  than  contempt,  and  one  of  the  newspapers  of  that 
time  says,  “  It  is  a  name  which  we  hope  will  soon  be  equal  to  that 
of  a  Roman,  or  an  ancient  Englishman.” 

They  soon  had  other  work  than  calling  names,  knocking  their 
antagonists  down,  or  tarring  and  feathering  them.  “  The  war  has 
already  begun.  The  next  breeze  will  bring  to  our  ears  the  clash  of 
resounding  arms.”  The  smoke  arises  from  the  first  battle  in  the 
War  of  the  Revolution. 


CHAPTER  XXXYI. 

BATTLE  OF  LEXINGTON. 

Hidden  Stores  of  Gunpowder  and  Bullets.  —  Paul  Revere’s  Ride.  —  Midnight  March.  —  Scene 
at  Lexington  Meeting-house. — First  Blood  shed.  —  Destruction  of  Stores. — The  Retreat 
and  Pursuit.  —  Lord  Percy  at  Charlestown. —  “  Yankee  Doodle  ”  and  “Chevy  Chase.” 

In  the  spring  of  1775  Governor  Gage  heard  constant  rumors  of 
military  stores,  gunpowder,  bullets,  guns,  and  muskets,'  secretly  col¬ 
lected  and  hidden  in  secure  places  by  the  Americans,  till  there 
should  be  use  for  them.  He  also  heard  accounts  of  companies 
forming  in  all  the  towns  and  villages  about  Boston,  for  military 
drill.  These  were  the  “  minute-men,”  so  called  because  they  were 
to  be  ready  on  a  minute’s  notice,  to  take  their  muskets  and  hurry  to 
the  field. 

It  was  difficult  for  Gage  to  find  just  where  these  stores  of  powder 
and  ammunition  were  hidden  ;  still  as  there  were  Tories  in  every 
town  it  was  impossible  to  keep  all  their  hiding-places  secret.  In 
April  Gage  was  told  that  out  in  the  town  of  Concord  the  Yankees 
had  stores  secreted.  At  ten  o’clock  on  the  evening  of  April  18, 
the  patriot  watchmen  who  were  posted  at  all  the  landing-places  in 
Boston,  saw  a  stirring  among  the  British  troops,  and  a  company  of 
them  embarking  in  boats,  at  the  lower  end  of  Boston  Common. 


BATTLE  OF  LEXINGTON. 


199 

In  less  than  half  an  hour,  two  mounted  horsemen  were  sent  off 
by  the  patriots  to  warn  the  country  all  around  to  be  on  their  guard. 
One  of  these  messengers  was  named  Paul  Revere.  He  was  an  en¬ 
graver  by  trade,  and  five  years  before,  at  the  time  of  the  Boston 
Massacre,  he  had  made  a  picture  of  the  troops  firing  on  the  citizens, 
which  plainly  showed  that  he  was  a  loyal  American.  Now  he 
started  off  at  full  gallop  over  Middlesex  County,  to  rouse  up  the 
people,  and  tell  the  minute-men  to  be  on  the  alert.  Once  he  was 
stopped  on  Ins  way,  but  after  being  examined  was  allowed  to  go  on. 
Longfellow  has  told  the  whole  story  of  Paul  Revere’s  ride  so  much 
better  than  I  can,  that  I  will  put  in  here  his  account  of  it.  See  if 
you  do  not  hear  the  sound  of  those  swift  hoofs  in  our  poet’s  lines. 


PAUL  REVERE’S  RIDE. 

Listen,  my  children,  and  you  shall  hear 
Of  the  midnight  ride  of  Paul  Revere. 

On  the  eighteenth  of  April  in  ’Seventy-five  ; 

Hardly  a  man  is  now  alive 

Who  remembers  that  famous  day  and  year. 

He  said  to  his  friend,  “  If  the  British  march 
By  land  or  sea  from  the  town  to-night, 

Hang  a  lantern  aloft  in  the  belfry  arch 

Of  the  North  Church  tower  as  a  signal  lio-ht, — 

One  if  by  land,  and  two  if  by  sea, 

*  And  I  on  the  opposite  shore  will  be, 

Ready  to  ride  and  spread  the  alarm 
Through  every  Middlesex  village  and  farm, 

For  the  country-folk  to  be  up  and  arm. 

Then  he  said  “  Good-night !  ”  and  with  muffled  oar 
Silently  rowed  to  the  Charlestown  shore, 

Just  as  the  moon  rose  over  the  bay, 

Where  swinging  wide  at  her  moorings  lay 
The  Somerset,  British  man-of-war  ; 

A  phantom  ship,  with  each  mast  and  spar 
Across  the  moon  like  a  prison  bar, 

And  a  huge  black  hulk  that  was  magnified 
By  its  own  reflection  in  the  tide. 

Meanwhile,  his  friend,  through  alley  and  streer. 
Wanders  and  watches  with  eager  ears, 

Till  in  the  silence  around  him  he  hears 
The  muster  of  men  at  the  barrack  door. 


200 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


Tlie  sound  of  arms,  and  the  tramp  of  feet, 

And  the  measured  tread  of  the  grenadiers 
Marching  down  to  their  boats  on  t  lie  slime. 

Then  he  climbed  the  tower  of  the  old  North  Church 
By  the  wooden  stairs,  with  stealthy  tread, 

To  the  belfry  chamber  over-head, 

And  startled  the  pigeons  from  their  perch, 

On  the  sombre  rafters,  that  around  him  made 
Masses  and  moving  shapes  of  shade,  — 

By  the  trembling  ladder,  steep  and  tall, 

To  the  highest  window  in  the  wall, 

Where  he  paused  to  listen  anil  look  down 
A  moment  on  the  roofs  of  the  town 
And  the  moonlight  flowing  over  all. 

Meanwhile,  impatient  to  mount  and  ride, 

Booted  and  spurred  with  a  heavy  stride, 

On  the  opposite  shore  walked  Paul  Revere. 

Now  he  patted  his  horse’s  side, 

Now  gazed  at  the  landscape  far  and  near, 

Then  impetuous,  stamped  the  earth. 

And  turned,  and  tightened  his  saddle  girth, 

But  mostly  he  watched  with  eager  search 

The  belfry  tower  of  the  old  North  Church 

As  it  rose  above  the  graves  on  the  hill, 

Lonely  and  spectral  and  sombre  and  still, 

And  lo  !  as  he  looks,  on  the  belfry’s  height 

A  glimmer,  and  then  a  gleam  of  light ! 

©  '  ©  ©  • 

He  springs  to  the  saddle,  the  bridle  he  turns, 

But  lingers  and  gazes,  till  full  on  his  sight 
A  second  lamp  in  the  belfry  burns  — 

A  hurry  of  hoofs  in  a  village  street, 

A  shape  in  the  moonlight,  a  bulk  in  the  dark, 

And  beneath,  from  the  pebbles,  in  passing  a  spark 
Struck  out  by  a  steed  flying  fearless  and  fleet : 

That  was  all !  And  yet,  through  the  gloom  and  the  light 
The  fate  of  a  nation  was  riding  that  night  : 

And  the  spark,  struck  out  by  that  steed  in  his  flight, 

Kindled  the  land  into  flame  with  its  heat. 

In  the  mean  time  the  troops  had  crossed  Charles  River,  and 
marched  in  dead  silence  down  to  Lexington,  six  miles  from  Con¬ 
cord.  Not  a  man  was  allowed  to  speak.  The  officers  uttered  their 
commands  in  whispers  as  they  rode  along  the  lines,  and  only  the 


Paul  Revere’ s  Ride 


BATTLE  OF  LEXINGTON. 


203 


thud  !  thud  !  of  their  footsteps  was  heard,  on  the  quiet  country  road. 
They  passed  many  a  farm-house  where  the  inmates  lay  dreaming 
of  liberty,  —  so  silently  that  they  were  not  wakened  from  their 
dreams. 

When  they  reached  Lexington,  the  sun  was  just  rising,  and  threw 
the  long  shadow  of  Lexington  meeting-house  over  the  grass.  Close 
by  the  meeting-house,  talking  earnestly,  were  a  group  of  less  than  a 
hundred  men.  These  were  minute-men,  with  muskets  in  hand. 
When  they  saw  the  red  coats  of  the  soldiers  glittering  in  the  morn¬ 
ing  sun,  they  began  to  disperse.  Up  rode  Major  Pitcairn,  who  was 
at  the  head  of  the  troops,  shouting  fiercely,  “  Disperse,  yon  rebels  ! 
Throw  down  your  arms,  and  disperse  !  ” 

The  troops  hurrahed ;  an  officer  discharged  his  pistol,  and  then 
the  soldiery  fired  among  the  provincials.  The  minute-men  had 
been  instructed  not  to  fire  unless  they  were  first  fired  upon  by  the 
British.  They  now  promptly  returned  fire,  wounding  three  of  the 
soldiers.  This  was  answered  by  a  fierce  volley  from  the  British,  un¬ 
der  which  the  Americans  began  a  retreat,  and  the  troops  marched  on 
unmolested  to  Concord,  leaving  them  to  pick  up  their  dead,  laugh¬ 
ing,  meanwhile,  at  the  Yankees,  who,  they  said,  needed  only  the 
first  smell  of  gunpowder  to  make  them  run. 

This  was  the  first  blood  shed  in  the  coming  war.  There,  on  the 
tender,  budding  grass  at  Lexington,  under  the  shining  morning  sun, 
near  the  shadow  of  the  meeting-house,  lay  eight  dead  men,  —  the 
first  victims  in  the  great  cause  of  liberty  in  America. 

On  went  the  troops  to  Concord,  dividing  there  into  two  detach¬ 
ments  which  v^nt  straight  to  the  two  points  where  stores  were  hid¬ 
den, — so  straight  that  it  was  said  afterwards  each  band  had  an 
American  pilot,  who  knew  more  of  the  secrets  of  his  countrymen 
than  the  British  had  been  able  to  learn.  There  was  a  Boston  bar¬ 
ber  (not  our  loyal  barber,  but  a  Tory),  and  a  tailor,  seen  among  the 
troops  in  soldiers’  clothes,  and  bad  as  they  hated  the  soldiers,  the 
Americans  hated  worse  these  “  Judases,”  who  would  betray  their 
own  fellow-countrymen. 

The  troops  took  the  guns  and  powder,  spiked  the  cannon,  set  fire 
to  the  gun-carriages,  and  took  one  hundred  barrels  of  flour,  half  of 
which  they  tumbled  into  the  river.  Going  onward  they  found  the 
minute-men  mustered  on  a  bridge  to  the  north,  one  hundred  and 
fifty  strong.  They  fired  and  killed  two  of  them,  and  then  a  volley 
blazed  back  from  the  American  lines.  The  British  troops  fell  back 


204 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


before  it.  The  Americans  pursued,  and  almost  in  a  twinkling  back 
went  the  red-coats  pell-mell,  in  retreat  toward  Lexington,  followed 
by  the  minute-men.  On  they  went  in  swift  retreat.  From  barns, 
fences,  and  trees,  all  along  the  road,  rang  the  quick  crack  of  mus¬ 
kets  picking  off  a  British  soldier.  Every  bush  seemed  to  hold  a 
patriot,  and  when  the  British  ran  panting  into  Lexington,  where 
Lord  Percy  had  been  sent  from  Boston  to  join  them  with  some 
fresh  troops,  they  had  left  two  hundred  and  ninety-three  men,  dead 
and  dying,  on  the  road  from  thence  to  Concord.  Percy  formed 
a  hollow  square  to  surround  the  fugitives,  and,  panting  with  fatigue 
and  thirst,  with  their  tongues  hanging  from  their  mouths  like  dogs, 
the  soldiery  threw  themselves  down  upon  the  ground  exhausted  and 
beaten,  with  no.  breath  left  even  to  laugh  at  Yankees.  When  one 
could  speak,  he  said  frankly,  “  They  fought  like  bears,  and  I  would 
as  soon  storm  hell,  as  fight  them  again.” 

Percy  led  them  back  to  Boston,  but  all  the  way  the  militia  fired 
from  every  place  where  a  man  and  a  musket  could  be  hidden.  In 
the  morning  Lord  Percy  had  marched  gayly  out  of  Boston,  his  band 
playing  “  Yankee  Doodle  ”  in  derision.  The  evening*  saw  him  com¬ 
ing  slowly  into  Charlestown,  tired  out,  his  redcoats  gray  with  mud 
and  dust.  “  Halloa,”  cried  a  young  rebel  from  behind  a  safe  corner, 
as  he  watched  him  setting  out  that  morning,  “You  play  ‘Yankee 
Doodle  ’  now,  but  before  long  you  will  play  ‘  Chevy  Chase.’  ” 1  It  had 
been  a  chase ,  indeed.  And  thus  ended  the  battle  of  Lexington. 


CHAPTER  XXXVII. 

TICONDEROGA  AND  BUNKER  HILL. 

Congress  meets  again.  —  George  Washington  made  Commander  of  the  'Armies.  —  Green 
Mountain  Boys.  — Ethan  Allen  takes  Ticonderoga  and  Crown  Point.  — Oglethorpe  refuses 
to  fight  the  Americans.  — Noble  Words  of  Samuel  Adams.  —  Americans  on  Bunker  Hill. — 
Battle  of  Bunker  Hill.  —  The  Monument  there. 

May  10,  1775,  the  Continental  Congress  met  again  in  Philadel¬ 
phia.  They  had  a  new  man  in  their  ranks:  Thomas  Jefferson, 
whom  we  heard  of  in  Virginia  before  the  war. 

This  time  Congress  took  stronger  measures,  and  formed  a  “Federal 
Union,”  taking  a  pledge  that  the  colonies  would  stand  by  each  other 

1  A  patriotic  newspaper  of  the  time  gives  this  story  of  the  boy’s  jest  as  an  authentic  one. 

I  hope  you  all  know  the  heroic  old  battle  of  Chevy  Chase,  in  which  one  of  this  very  Lord 
Percy’s  ancestors  figures. 


TICONDEROGA  ANI)  BUNKER  HILL. 


205 


in  the  struggle  that  was  coming,  and  that  all  should  be  as  one. 
They  did  not  give  up  remonstrating  with  the  king  yet,  but  sent 
him  an  eloquent  appeal,  which  he  took  no  notice  of  except  by  call¬ 
ing  them  rebels. 

They  talked  over  plans  for  raising  an  army,  for  collecting  stores, 
and  fortifying  their  weak  places.  Their  most  memorable  act  was 
the  appointment  of  a  commander-in-chief  of  the  colonial  armies. 

Mr.  Johnson  of  Maryland  rose  and  nominated  for  commander, 
Creorge  Washington  of  Virginia ,  and  it  was  unanimously  approved. 
You  have  already  heard  something  of  Washington  ;  of  his  service 
in  the  French  and  Indian  wars,  and  his  loyalty  to  his  country 
when  these  new  troubles  had  arisen.  Ever  since  the  French  wars, 
until  he  was  called  to  join  the  Continental  Congress,  he  had  lived 
quietly  down  in  Virginia,  working  hard  in  the  care  of  his  large  plan¬ 
tation,  and  all  his  great  family  of  slaves,  which  numbered  several 
hundred.  He  had  lived  a  simple  life,  although  he  was  a  rich  man, 
and  his  chief  amusement  had  been  long  horse-back  rides,  or  hunting 
excursions,  of  which  he  was  very  fond.  There  was  no  show  nor 
pretense  about  him,  but 
everybody  who  knew 
him,  knew  that  here  was 
an  honest,  brave,  clear¬ 
headed  gentleman,  loyal 
to  the  core,  a  good  sol¬ 
dier,  and  the  fittest  man 
whom  they  could  select 
to  lead  the  ^provincial 
army. 

When  his  appoint¬ 
ment  was  confirmed,  he 
rose  and  thanked  Con- 
g r e  s s  in  a  m a n  1  y, 
straightforward  speech. 

He  told  them  he  very 
much  feared  he  was  not 
equal  to  the  high  trust 
they  had  given  him,  but 
he  would  do  his  best  in 
the  service  of  his  COUll-  George  Washington. 

try.  And  he  told  them  he  should  accept  no  money  for  his  services, 


206  STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 

beyond  the  bare  expenses  he  incurred,  and  those,  he  doubted  not, 
they  would  be  able  to  discharge. 

The  picture  of  this  Virginia  gentleman,  the  soldier- farmer,  stand¬ 
ing  with  his  tall  figure  in  the  midst  of  this  listening  Congress,  is  a 
picture  quite  as  grand  as  any  gallery  of  Roman  heroes  furnishes. 

Before  Congress  adjourned  stirring  news  reached  them.  It  would 
have  reached  them  long  before,  if  news  could  travel  as  fast  then  as 

now.  This  news  came 
slowly,  even  for  those 
days.  England  had  re¬ 
fused  to  carry  the  mails 
in  her  rebellious  prov¬ 
inces,  or  perhaps  it 
would  be  more  correct 
to  say  the  Americans  re¬ 
fused  to  use  British  let¬ 
ter-carriers.  Benjamin 
Franklin  had  just  been 
made  general -postmas¬ 
ter  by  Continental  Con¬ 
gress,  and  carrying  news 
was  slower  business  than 
ever,  in  the  change  of 
affairs.  Spite  of  all  ob¬ 
stacles,  however,  news 
did  reach  Philadelphia 
that  thP  forts  Crown 
Point  and  Ticonderoga, 
famous  in  the  French 
war,  had  been  taken  by 
the  Americans  on  the 
10th  of  May,  the  very  day  Congress  assembled.  Let  me  tell  you  how 
this  happened. 

Up  among  the  mountains  in  what  is  now  the  State  of  Vermont, 
companies  of  brave  fellows  were  formed,  who  called  themselves 
“  Green  Mountain  Boys.”  The  foremost  .leader  among  them  was 
Colonel  Ethan  Allen,  a  man  of  great  energy  and  resolution.  To 
him  was  intrusted  the  attack  upon  Ticonderoga.  Allen’s  men  were 
joined  by  another  company  under  Colonel  Benedict  Arnold ,  a  vol¬ 
unteer  from  New  Haven,  Connecticut,  who  had  lately  enlisted  in 


TICONDEROGA  AND  BUNKER  HILL. 


207 


the  war.  They  had  some  trouble  about  which  should  command, 
but  Arnold  finally  gave  up,  and  Allen  marched  on  to  Fort  Ticon- 
deroga.  Their  coming  was  so  unexpected,  and  the  force  in  the  gar¬ 
rison  was  so  small,  that  Ethan  Allen  got  inside  the  fort  with  a 
party,  rushed  up-stairs  to  where  the  governor  was  asleep  in  his  bed, 
ignorant  of  the  attack,  and  waked  him  up  with  a  tremendous  pound¬ 
ing  on  his  door. 

“  Who ’s  there,”  asked  the  sleepy  governor,  “  and  what  do  you 
want  ?  ” 

“  I  come  to  demand  the  instant  surrender  of  this  fort,”  answered 

Allen. 

“  By  whose  authority  ?  ”  asked  the  astonished  governor,  jumping 
up  and  beginning  to  dress. 

“  I  demand  it  in  the  name  of  the  Great  Jehovah  and  the  Conti¬ 
nental  Congress,”  thundered  Allen.  Surprised  in  this  manner,  with 
no  time  to  plan  resistance,  the  governor  could  do  no  better  than  yield 
the  fort.  Crown  Point  also  surrendered  peaceably,  and  thus  two 
valuable  posts  were  in  the  hands  of  the  patriots.  The  best  of  it  was 
that  they  found  a  good  supply  of  powder  and  ball,  guns  and  cannon, 
in  the  fort,  which  was  a  great  treasure  to  the  Americans.  I  do  not 
know  whether  they  could  have  fought  through  their  first  campaign 
if  it  had  not  been  for  this  good  fortune. 

All  this  time  the  King  of  England  and  his  counselors  were  chaf¬ 
ing  and  fretting  at  their  powerlessness  to  argue  the  colonies  into 
submission.  They  had  fully  decided  that  America  was  an  unruly 
child  who  must  be  made  to  obey.  They  had  decided  on  sending 
more  generals  and  further  troops  to  the  colonies.  General  James 
Oglethorpe  was  the  oldest  general  in  rank,  and  they  offered  the  com¬ 
mand  to  him.  But  he  refused  it.  All  honor  to  him  for  that.  If 
he  had  come  over  here  to  America,  to  force  taxation  on  the  people, 
after  all  his  noble  work  in  the  colony  of  Georgia,  I  fear  we  should 
have  lost  faith  in  him. 

They  sent  over  instead,  Generals  Howe,  Burgoyne,  and  Henry 
Clinton,  who  came  prepared  to  let  slip  the  dogs  of  war  at  the  very 
throats  of  the  colonies.  As  soon  as  they  got  over,  General  Gage, 
who  had  been  trembling  in  his  shoes  at  the  way  matters  looked, 
began  to  feel  brave  again.  He  issued  a  proclamation,  saying,  if  the 
colonists  would  now  lay  down  then-  arms  and  say  they  were  sorry, 
they  might  be  forgiven,  and  taken  into  royal  favor  again,  —  all  but 
John  Hancock  and  Samuel  Adams.  Those  two  men  should  be 

14 


208 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


hanged  if  anybody  could  lay  hold  of  them.  John  Hancock  had 
been  president  of  the  Massachusetts  Assembly,  and  made  himself 
odious  in  that  way.  As  to  Samuel  Adams,  he  was  the  man  best 
hated  by  the  Tories,  of  any  rebel  in  America.  He  was  eloquent,  and 
he  always  used  his  voice  for  liberty.  He  was  poor,  and  no  money 
could  buy  him  off  from  speaking  his  mind.  No  matter  how  other 
men  wavered,  he  stood  always  firm.  General  Gage  complained, 
“  Such  is  the  dogged  obstinacy  of  this  man,  lie  cannot  be  conciliated 
by  any  offices  or  any  gifts.” 


He  spurned  both  British  offices  and  money,  and  he  said,  — 

“  I  will  oppose  this  tyranny  at  the  threshold,  though  the  fabric  of 
liberty  fall  and  I  perish  in  its  ruins.” 

I  do  not  wonder  that  General  Gage  left  him  out  of  his  pardon 
proclamation.  One  such  man  was  enough  to  infect  a  whole  state 
with  a  desire  for  freedom. 

Howe  landed  in  Boston,  and  began  to  form  plans  for  his  cam- 


TICONDEROGA  AND  BUNKER  HILL. 


209 


paign.  He  was  the  brother  of  that  brave  young  Howe  who  fell, 
fighting,  at  Ticonderoga  in  the  French  war.  If  he  were  half  as  good 
a  soldier,  the  Americans  had  reason  to  fear  his  coming. 

The  evening  of  the  16th  of  June,  a  party  of  Americans  were  com¬ 
manded  to  go  over  to  Charlestown  and  fortify  Bunker  Hill.  It 
was  rumored  that  Governor  Gage  was  going  to  take  the  hill  and 
plant  cannon  there,  and  the  patriots  determined  to  be  ahead  of  him. 
Under  cover  of  the  dark,  the  Americans  climbed  the  hill,  and  began 
to  work  at  throwing  intrenchments  of  earth  on  its  top.  They  made 
a  mistake,  however,  and  took  Breed’s  Hill,  instead  of  Bunker,  the 
former  being  a  quarter  of  a  mile  nearer  Boston. 

When  the  British  got  up  in  the  morning  of  the  17th  of  June,  and 
looked  out  over  the  river,  there  were  the  Americans,  with  pickaxes 
and  spades,  working  away  like  so  many  ants  on  an  ant-hill,  with  a 
great  breastwork  of  earth  piled  up  in  front  of  them.  They  hurried 
to  get  their  cannon  in  readiness,  and  from  Copp’s  Hill,  in  the  north 
of  Boston,  they  poured  a  rain  of  balls  on  Breed’s  Hill,  while  from 
their  ships  in  the  harbor  they  raked  the  embankment  from  another 
point.  But  they  could  do  no  harm  in  this  way,  so  well  were  the 
Americans  protected. 

By  noon  they  concluded  they  must  make  a  more  decided  attack. 
Howe  sent  3,000  men  over  the  river,  to  go  up  the  hill,  and  drive  the 
Americans  from  their  post.  They  went  over  in  boats,  and  the 
Americans,  who  could  see  every  movement,  watched  their  coming. 
Other  eyes  watched  too.  The  roofs  of  Boston  were  covered  with 
people  looking  on.  Many  a  woman,  whose  husband  or  son  was 
crouching  down  behind  that  breastwork  of  earth,  waiting  the 
enemy’s  approach,  looked  eagerly  over  the  river,  and  watched  with 
fast  beating  heart  every  motion  of  the  two  armies.  It  was  a  terrible 
sight  to  gaze  on,  when  your  own  heart’s  blood  might  flow  in  the 
coming  battle. 

Up  the  hill  went  the  British  soldiers,  firing  every  moment  as 
they  climbed.  At  the  top  waited  fifteen  hundred  men,  crouched  be¬ 
hind  the  embankment,  silent  as  death.  They  had  no  bullets  and 
powder  to  waste,  till  the  British  were  close  at  hand. 

“  Aim  low,  boys,”  whispered  Colonel  Prescott,  the  patriot  com¬ 
mander,  “  fire  at  their  waistbands,  and  wait  till  you  see  the  whites 
of  their  eyes.  Waste  no  powder.” 

When  the  redcoats  were  almost  up  the  hill,  their  plumes  nearly 
level  with  its  crest,  Bang  !  bang  !  went  the  fifteen  hundred  muskets 


210 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY 


at  once,  and  down  went  scores  of  brave  Britishers,  cut  down  as  the 
scythe  cuts  the  waving  grain.  At  this  moment,  great  volumes  of 
flame  and  smoke  rose  from  Charlestown  in  eight  or  ten  places  at 
once.  It  had  been  set  on  fire  by  the  soldiers  as  they  marched 
through  the  town. 

The  British  fell  back  at  the  first  fire,  then  they  rallied  again,  and 
the  Americans  sent  another  volley  among  them.  A  second  time 
they  fell  back  in  dismay.  This  time  they  waited  long  before  renew¬ 
ing  the  attack,  and  hope  beat  high  in  the  breasts  of  the  men  behind 


Joseph  Warren. 


the  intrenchment.  But  the  third  time  the  British  pressed  on  more 
firmly;  they  scaled  the  intrenchment;  the  Americans,  many  of 
them  without  powder,  tried  to  beat  them  hack  with  clubbed  muskets, 


TICONDEROGA  AND  BUNKER  HILL. 


211 


and  volleys  of  stones  caught  up  from  the  redoubt ;  but  their  last 
resistance  was  in  vain,  the  British  had  gained  the  summit,  and  the 
Americans,  beaten  backwards,  fled  down  the  hill,  and  retreated  be¬ 
yond  Charlestown  Neck.  The  last  man  to  leave  the  field  was 
Joseph  Warren,  one  of  the  bravest  and  noblest  of  all  who  had 
gathered  there  that  day.  As  he  turned  to  follow  his  retreating  com¬ 
panions,  he  was  shot  through  the  head  and  killed  instantly.  The 
battle  had  lasted  two  hours,  and  when  the  day  ended,  1,100  men 
from  the  British  ranks,  450  men  from  the  Americans,  were  found  to 
be  lost  in  the  encounter. 

To-day,  a  grand  monument  rises  from  the  summit  where  Warren 
fell,  and  on  the  grass-covered  terraces  which  crown  the  hill,  there 


Plan  of  Bunker  Hill.  Mon  ument. 

are  no  other  signs  of  battle  ;  hundreds  of  tall-masted  ships  crowd 
Boston  harbor,  where  the  British  ships  then  rode  at  anchor ;  on  the 
ruins  of  Charlestown,  that  day  burnt  to  the  ground,  a  thickly  built 
city  stands ;  on  the  summit  of  Copp’s  Hill,  where  the  English 
planted  their  cannon,  is  an  old  cemetery  with  its  mouldering  grave¬ 
stones.  There,  in  the  midst  of  the  great  city,  sleep  many  of  the  fore¬ 
fathers  of  the  old  town.  There,  where  some  of  my  ancestors  sleep, 
and  very  likely  some  of  yours,  the  sunshine  falls  pleasantly  on  the 
crumbling  old  stones  and  the  neglected  paths  overgrown  with  grass 
and  burdocks.  It  is  a  century  since  these  places  resounded  with  the 


212 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


thunder  of  British  cannon,  and  no  traces  of  the  struggle  are  left 
there.  Happily,  our  good  mother  Earth  bears  no  scars  from  the 
battles  fought  on  her  bosom,  but  covers  them  quickly  up  with  soft 
grass  and  tender  flowers. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII. 

WASHINGTON  AND  IIIS  ARMY. 

Washington’s  Camps  about  Boston.  —  The  Patriot  Generals.  —  Story  of  Israel  Putnam.  —  Dress 
of  the  Soldiers.  —  Pennsylvania  Riflemen.  —  Story  of  a  Marksman.  —  Washington’s  Anxieties. 

The  ball  had  opened,  and  events  followed  each  other  thicker  and 
faster.  All  those  who  had  hesitated  before,  now  took  one  side  or 
the  other.  Before  the  summer  was  over,  every  colony,  from  New 
Hampshire  to  Georgia,  was  up  in  arms ;  the  thirteen  royal  governors 
were  pushed  from  their  royal  stools,  and  obliged  to  go  office-hunt¬ 
ing  elsewhere. 

Washington  had  gathered  his  army  together,  and  gone  to  Massa¬ 
chusetts,  which  was  for  the  present  the  head-quarters  of  both 
armies.  Boston  had  been  fortified  all  about  by  the  British;  and  the 
patriots  who  had  not  left  the  city  before  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill, 
were  prisoners  in  their  own  homes.  In  return,  Washington  sur¬ 
rounded  Boston  with  his  whole  army,  and  held  the  country  all  about. 

He  had  several  generals  to  help  him  bring  order  out  of  chaos, 
most  of  whom  had  gained  military  experience  in  the  French  and 
Indians  wars.  You  can  fancy  it  was  no  easy  task  to  organize  these 
raw  recruits  into  an  orderly  and  disciplined  army.  General  Hora¬ 
tio  Gates  was  one  of  the  ablest  of  them  all  in  this  respect.  Charles 
Lee  of  Virginia  also  did  good  service,  and  one  of  the  most  famous 
of  all  was  Israel  Putnam  of  Connecticut,  whom  the  boys  called  “  Old 

Put,”  a  kind  of  pet  name  by  which  they 
showed  their  liking  for  him.  He  was  famed 
for  his  pluck  ever  since  his  wolf  hunt, 
which  was  known  all  over  the  Ctate  of  Con¬ 
necticut.  The  wolf  story  is  as  follows  :  — 
When  Putnam  was  a  young  man,  a 
farmer  in  Connecticut,  he  was  very  much 
troubled  by  a  wolf  which  for  several  years 
ravaged  all  the  sheep  herds  for  miles  around. 


General  Putnam. 


WASHINGTON  AND  HIS  ARMY. 


213 


One  morning,  on  finding  lie  had  lost  a  large  number  of  sheep  during 
the  night,  Putnam  declared  he  would  set  out  and  destroy  the  fero¬ 
cious  animal.  He  raised  a  party  of  neighbors,  and  they  tracked 
the  creature  forty  miles,  till  they  came  to  her  den.  This  den 
was  a  deep  cave  in  the  rocks,  which  a  man  could  only  enter  by 
crawling  on  his  hands  and  knees.  They  tried  to  smoke  the  animal 
out,  but  it  was  impossible.  They  set  dogs  in  upon  her,  and  the 
dogs  came  out  with  lacerated  flesh,  howling  with  pain.  At  length 
Putnam  declared  he  would  go  in  himself.  Tying  a  rope  round  his 
legs,  so  that  they  might  draw  him  out,  when  he  should  pull  it  a 
certain  number  of  times,  he  crawled  in  slowly,  holding  a  torch. 
He  soon  saw  the  eyes  of  the  creature  glaring  from  a  corner  of  the 
cave.  He  gave  the  signal  to  be  pulled  out,  and  loading  his  gun 
outside,  crawled  in  again,  till  he  was  close  upon  the  monster.  Then 
he  fired,  and,  blinded  by  smoke,  deafened  by  the  noise  of  the  gun, 
was  pulled  out  again.  For  the  third  time  he  entered,  and  finding 
the  animal  was  dead,  he  hauled  her  out  by  the  ears,  while  his  com¬ 
panions  pulled  him  by  the  rope  round  his  legs.  His  clothes  were  all 
torn  off  his  back,  and  his  face  black  witli  smoke  and  powder,  but  he 
had  killed  the  wolf,  and  kept  her  skin  as  a  trophy.  Since  then  he 
had  fought  in  the  French  and  Indian  wars,  and  wherever  danger 
was,  he  was  foremost. 

You  can  form  no  idea  what  a  task  lay  before  Washington  and  his 
generals.  Here  was  a  great  body  of  men  hurried  into  the  field  from 
farms  and  workshops,  with  no  more  idea  of  military  drill  than  a 
herd  of  sheep,  with  miserable  old  muskets,  scanty  supply  of  powder 
and  balls,  and  no  money  to  buy  any.  Then  the  dress  of  this  pro¬ 
vincial  army  was  enough  to  excite  the  laugh  which  the  British  sol¬ 
diers  raised  at  them.  Some  of  them  were  dressed  in  the  long-tailed 
linsey-woolsey  coats,  and  linsey-woolsey  breeches,  which  had  been 
spun  and  woven  in  farm-house  kitchens  ;  some  wore  smock-frocks 
like  a  butcher,  also  made  of  homespun  ;  some  wore  suits  of  British 
broadcloth,  so  long  used  for  Sunday  clothes  that  they  had  grown 
rather  the  worse  for  wear ;  and  every  variety  of  dress  and  fashion 
figured  in  these  motley  ranks. 

When  General  Washington  rode  grandly  out  on  horseback, 
dressed  in  his  fine  blue  broadcloth  coat,  with  buff  colored  facings, 
buff  waistcoat  and  breeches,  a  hat  with  black  cockade,  and  a  sword 
in  an  elegantly  embroidered  sword-belt,  I  think  his  heart  must 
have  sunk  within  him  as  he  looked  on  his  tatterdemalion  army,  and 


214 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


then  glanced  over  towards  Boston,  and  thought  of  the  British 
soldiers,  gorgeous  in  brand-new  uniforms,  trained  to  inarch  up  to  the 
cannon’s  mouth  like  a  solid  wall  in  motion. 

But  for  all  that,  there  was  good  stuff  in  that  American  army,  bad 
as  it  looked.  Many  of  those  men  had  fought  hand-to-hand  with  sav¬ 
age  beasts  and  still  more  savage  Indians.  They  had  learned  to  pick 
off  their  adversaries  from  behind  trees  and  rocks,  and  when  their 
powder  gave  out,  they  could  fight  with  clubbed  muskets.  When  a 
company  of  Pennsylvania  riflemen  came  to  join  the  army,  a  news¬ 
paper  of  the  day  says,  “  They  already  show  scars  which  would  do 
honor  to  Homer’s  Iliad.” 

Two  brothers  in  this  company  took  a  board  five  inches  long  by 
seven  wide,  writh  -a  piece  of  white  paper,  the  size  of  a  dollar,  in  the 
middle.  One  of  them  stood  up  and  held  it  between  his  knees,  while 
the  other  shot,  at  sixty  yards  off,  eight  bullets  one  after  the  other 
through  the  white,  and  never  grazed  his  brother’s  leg.  When  the 
spectators  wondered,  they  said  “  fifty  boys  in  the  company  could  do 
that  feat,”  and  then  they  offered  to  shoot  apples  off  each  other’s 
head,  as  William  Tell  did,  if  the  spectators  would  like  to  see  it 
done.1  Their  feats  were  stopped,  however,  and  they  saved  their 
powder  for  other  uses.  These  were  not  men  to  laugh  at,  though 
some  of  them  had  no  better  uniform  than  an  Indian  hunting  shirt, 
and  leggings  and  moccasins  of  deer-skin  to  cover  legs  and  feet. 

Looked  at  in  the  most  hopeful  light,  the  aspect  of  the  army  was 
discouraging,  and  Washington  must  have  passed  many  anxious  days 
and  sleepless  nights,  as  he  lay  with  his  army  on  the  banks  of  the 
Mystic  River.  He  knew  better  than  anybody  that  there  was  hardly 
powder  enough  in  their  whole  camp  to  fight,  a  two  hours’  battle,  and 
that  half  the  officers  knew  no  more  of  military  affairs  than  their 
men.  But  he  was  one  of  those  men  who  carry  a  grand,  serene  front, 
no  matter  what  trouble  gnaws  the  heart.  He  did  not  go  fretting  and 
blustering  about,  telling  people  how  worried  he  was.  And  when 
some  people,  who  did  not  understand  the  facts,  blamed  him  because 
he  did  not  march  upon  the  British,  he  kept  silent,  and  did  not 
betray  by  a  look  the  true  state  of  affairs.  He  was,  of  all  men,  the 
one  who  best  knew  how  to  be  patient  and  bide  his  time  for  action. 
It  is  to  that  grand  quality  of  this  great  man,  that  this  country  owes 
a  greater  debt  than  we  can  rightly  estimate. 

1  These  feats,  and  many  others  of  like  daring,  are  related  by  the  newspapers  of  that  date. 


THE  MARCH  TO  QUEBEC. 


215 


CHAPTER  XXXIX. 

THE  MARCH  TO  QUEBEC. 

On  to  Canada.  —  Montgomery  clothes  his  Soldiers  in  Montreal. — Benedict  Arnold’s  Heroic 
March  to  Quebec.  — Attack  on  the  Citadel.  — Montgomery’s  Death.  —  Brave  Act  of  Aaron 
Burr.  —  Retreat  from  Canada. 

Early  in  the  summer  of  1775  the  Americans  began  to  look 
eagerly  towards  Canada,  to  see  if  there  were  any  signs  of  help  from 
that  quarter.  Ever  since  their  success  in  New  York,  Ethan  Allen 
and  Benedict  Arnold  had  been  thundering  in  the  ears  of  Congress 
and  the  commander-in-chief,  “  On  to  Montreal  and  Quebec.  Let 
us  take  them  as  we  took  Crown  Point  and  Ticonderoga.” 

Washington  knew  as  well  as  anybody  how  important  it  was  to 
hold  these  places,  but  he  knew  also  that  there  was  not  enough 
ammunition  in  the  Continental  army  to  besiege  a  log  hut,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  strong  walls  of  Quebec.  All  summer  he  was  urging 
on  the  various  colonies  the  necessity  of  sending  powder  to  the  army, 
“  Send  what  powder  and  lead  you  can  spare,  be  it  ever  so  little,” 
was  the  burden  of  his  prayer  to  all  the  patriotic  governors.  He 
even  sent  to  Bermuda  and  got  from  them  one  hundred  barrels  of 
gun  powder,  a  most  valuable  acquisition  to  his  small  store. 

In  September,  two  detachments  were  ordered  to  march  to  Canada. 
General  Montgomery  was  the  brave  soldier  who  had  helped  Wolfe 
at  the  taking  of  Quebec  from  the  French.  He  had  married  a  wife 
in  America,  and  settled  down  in  Virginia  after  the  French  war. 
When  the  Revolution  began,  he  went  into  it,  heart  and  soul.  Pie 
was  the  leader  of  one  of  these  divisions,  and  was  sent  north  through 
Lake  Champlain  down  the  St.  Lawrence  to  Montreal.  General 
Schuyler  of  Albany  started  with  him,  but  he  was  obliged  to  turn 
aside  in  order  to  make  treaty  with  the  Mohawk  Indians,  who  lived 
all  about  Albany.  You  remember  Sir  William  Johnson  who  had 
made  such  good  friends  of  these  Indians.  He  was  now  dead,  and 
his  son,  who  succeeded  him  in  “Johnson  Castle,”  was  a  British 
officer.  The  Americans  feared  he  would  make  all  the  Mohawk 
Indians  hostile  to  them,  and  as  nobody  among  the  American  gener¬ 
als  could  deal  with  them  as  well  as  General  Philip  Schuyler  of 
Albany,  he  left  Montgomery  to  go  and  treat  with  them. 

Montgomery  went  on  to  Montreal,  and,  as  the  British  army  in 
Canada  was  nearly  all  withdrawn  to  the  colonies,  he  found  no  sol- 


216 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


diers  to  defend  it,  and  took  the  city  with  very  little  trouble.  There 
he  found  such  treasures  !  whole  store-houses  full  of  warm  woolen 
goods,  blankets,  shirts,  jackets,  and  trousers,  all  of  good  English 
cloth  and  flannel,  to  clothe  his  army.  They  were  a  ragged  set  of 
fellows,  I  imagine,  when  they  marched  into  Montreal,  but  many  of 
them  marched  out  again,  like  Harry  Gill,  “  with  blankets  on  their 
backs,  and  coats  enough  to  smother  nine.”  They  carried  off  an 
extra  supply  to  give  to  some  of  the  shivering  fellows  who  were 
coming  up  to  Quebec  to  join  them  in  front  of  its  walls. 

Montgomery  left  part  of  his  soldiers  in  Montreal,  and  went  on  to¬ 
wards  Quebec.  All  this  time  the  second  division  had  been  on  its 
way  there.  They  had  been  ordered  to  go  up  through  Maine,  and 
meet  Montgomery  on  the  other  side  of  Quebec.  Their  leader  was 
Colonel  Benedict  Arnold,  who  had  behaved  so  gallantly  at  Ticon- 
deroga  with  Allen.  Allen  would  have  been  sent  too,  probably,  if 
he  had  not  made  a  foolish  attack  on  Montreal  before  Montgomery 
got  there,  been  taken  prisoner,  and  sent  in  irons  to  England  as 
a  traitor. 

General  Arnold  had  a  young  captain  with  him,  named  Aaron 
Burr,  a  brave,  gallant  young  fellow,  just  out  of  college,  whose  name 
I  wish  you  to  remember,  because  you  will  hear  more  about  him  in 
the  course  of  this  history.  Their  march  to  Quebec  was  terribly 
severe.  They  had  to  go  up  the  Kennebec  River  in  boats,  and  when 
they  got  to  places  where  the  river  was  not  navigable,  they  carried 
their  boats  on  their  backs,  till  they  could  find  a  stream  leading  to 
the  St.  Lawrence.  It  was  bitter  cold,  and  they  marched  sometimes 
waist  deep  in  icy  water  ;  they  slept  in  the  leafless  forests  on  freez¬ 
ing  nights  ;  their  clothes  were  ragged ;  and  in  this  march,  five  hun¬ 
dred  miles  long,  they  wore  out  their  shoes,  and  many  froze  their  feet. 
Their  provisions  gave  out  also,  and  some  of  them  ate  the  leather  of 
their  shoes  and  knapsacks.  Many  of  them  turned  back  discouraged, 
and  straggled  home  to  Massachusetts,  or  died  by  the  way.  Still  the 
brave  Arnold  went  on  unflinchingly,  followed  by  the  brave  men 
who  would  not  retreat,  in  spite  of  all  this  suffering.  Yes,  and  many 
brave  women,  too,  who  had  followed  the  army,  hoping  to  be  of  ser¬ 
vice  to  the  cause,  shared  all  these  hardships,  and  kept  firmly  on  till 
they  reached  the  shores  of  the  river  opposite  Quebec,  and  halted 
there.  Then  young  Aaron  Burr  continued  alone  his  march  more 
than  one  hundred  miles  farther,  to  find  Montgomery  and  tell  him 
they  were  ready  to  join  him  in  the  attack  on  Quebec. 


THE  MARCH  TO  QUEBEC. 


217 


On  the  31st  of  December,  the  last  day  of  the  year,  a  severe  snow¬ 
storm  raged,  and  in  the  midst  of  it,  Montgomery  gave  the  signal  for 
the  attack.  Montgomery  was  to  attempt  it  on  one  side,  Arnold  on 
the  other.  It  was  a  fierce  and  bloody  struggle,  a  fight  hand-to-hand 
almost,  between  the  American  soldiers  outside,  and  the  small  garrison 
inside,  who  had  the  advantage  of  the  city  walls  to  help  their  small 
numbers.  I  think  the  Americans  might  have  beaten,  —  and  if  they 
had  taken  Quebec  that  day,  the  stars  and  stripes  might  be  flying  at 
this  moment  from  that  grand  old  citadel,  —  but  just  as  Montgomery 
was  storming  the  second  battery,  just  as  he  cried  aloud,  “  Follow  me, 
my  brave  boys,  and  Quebec  is  ours!  ”  a  grape-shot  struck  him,  and 
he  went  down  without  another  word.  The  soldiers  who  followed 
him,  were  mown  down  by  the  same  volley  from  the  cannon,  the 
rest  scattered  and  fled,  and  Quebec  was  lost. 

I  must  not  forget  one  brave  deed  of  Captain  Aaron  Burr’s,  who 
stood  beside  Montgomery  when  he  fell.  He  was  only  a  slight,  del¬ 
icate  looking  stripling,  and  Montgomery  was  a  tall,  heavy  man, 
twice  his  weight  almost.  Yet,  when  he  saw  him  fall,  young  Burr 
snatched  up  the  dead  body  of  his  general,  and,  staggering  under  his 
load,  dragged  it  down  the  ascent  away  from  the  fire  of  the  enemy. 

After  Montgomery’s  fall,  Arnold,  who  had  made  his  attack  from 
the  opposite  side,  was  beaten  off  and  forced  to  retreat.  He  stayed 
in  Canada  several  months,  hoping  he  might  see  an  opportunity  for 
victory,  but  in  May,  1776,  the  British  army  from  Boston  came  to 
reinforce  it,  and  Arnold  left  his  post  before  Quebec,  took  the  sol¬ 
diers  whom  Montgomery  had  left  in  Montreal,  and  left  Canada  to 
the  British.  It  is  possible  that  Canada  might  have  gone  with  the 
United  Colonies,  if  there  had  not  been  so  large  a  proportion  of  in¬ 
habitants  there  (the  old  French  settlers),  who  had  no  interest  in 
the  war,  and  cared  very  little  which  side  was  victorious.  There 
was  little  of  the  liberty  loving  element  in  Canada,  which  had  been 
fostered  among  the  English  who  had  settled  in  New  England,  Vir¬ 
ginia,  and  the  rest  of  the  thirteen  colonies. 


218 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


CHAPTER  XL. 

AFFAIRS  IN  MASSACHUSETTS  AND  SOUTH  CAROLINA. 

The  Redcoats  imprisoned  in  Boston.  —  Howe  concludes  to  leave  Boston.  —  The  Tories  go  to 
Halifax.  —  Entrance  of  Washington  into  Boston.  — Joy  of  the  Patriots.  —  Washington  goes 
to  New  York.  —  The  Hessians  in  America.  — A  British  Fleet  attacks  Charleston. 

All  the  winter  of  1775  and  1776,  Washington  remained  in  his  en¬ 
campments  about  Boston,  keeping  the  army  of  the  redcoats  inclosed 
there,  almost  as  if  the  city  were  their  prison-house.  The  British 
had  for  some  time  been  obliged  to  live  on  salt  provisions,  for  want 
of  fresh  meat,  and  there  was  some  danger  that  even  their  salted 
meats  might  give  out.  They  were  short  of  fuel,  too,  and  General 
Howe  had  taken  down  several  wooden  houses,  and  the  “  Old  North 
Meeting-house,”  and  had  them  chopped  up  for  firewood.  The 
British  took  great  delight  in  showing  all  the  contempt  they  could 
for  the  Puritan  places  of  worship.  Not  content  with  chopping  up 
the  wood  of  the  old  North  Meeting-house  to  replenish  their  wood- 
piles,  they  had  used  the  “  Old  South  Church  ”  for  a  riding-school, 
taking  out  the  pews  and  strewing  the  floor  with  litter  for  the  horses. 
One  especially  handsome  pew,  which  had  a  carved  back,  they  had 
taken,  early  in  their  occupation  of  Boston,  to  make  a  fence  for  a  pig¬ 
pen.  The  British  soldiers  amused  themselves  by  shooting  into  the 
Puritan  churches,  and  otherwise  mutilating  them,  calling  them 

“  d - d  Presbyterian  meeting-houses.” 

In  March  Washington  began  to  fortify  on  Dorchester  Heights, 
an  eminence  very  near  the  city.  His  movements  alarmed  General 
Howe  very  much,  and  he  began  at  once  to  make  plans  to  take  his 
army  away  from  the  city,  and  go  to  Halifax  in  Nova  Scotia,  where 
he  knew  he  should  be  quite  safe.  Accordingly  he  gave  orders  to 
the  Tories  and  the  soldiers  to  take  everything  out  of  town  which 
would  be  of  any  service  to  the  Americans,  and  what  they  could  not 
take  away  they  were  ordered  to  destroy.  On  this,  the  army  took 
all  the  blankets,  and  woolen  and  linen  clothing  in  town  ;  they 
spiked  some  of  their  cannon,  and  threw  some  into  the  harbor  ;  and 
did  all  the  mischief  they  could  before  leaving.  The  Tories  living 
in  Boston,  who  had  hoped  the  British  army  would  stay  and  protect 
them  and  their  property  there,  were  terribly  alarmed  when  they 
found  General  Howe  was  going.  Fifteen  hundred  of  them  packed 
up  their  household  goods  and  valuables,  as  many  of  them  as  they 


AFFAIRS  IN  MASSACHUSETTS  AND  SOUTH  CAROLINA.  219 


could  carry,  and  prepared  to  go  to  Halifax  with  the  army.  Then 
the  soldiers  scattered  all  about  the  entrances  to  the  city  an  ugly 
little  iron  instrument  with  four  sharp  points  sticking  out  in  all 
directions  which  was  called  a  “  crow's  foot.”  This  was  done  that 
the  horses  and  men  of  the  Americans  might  tread  upon  it  in  en¬ 
tering  the  town,  and  be  disabled  in  their  feet.  At  last,  one  day  in 
March,  General  Howe  and  his  army  took  ships  and  sailed  out  of 
Boston  harbor  for  Halifax,  never  to  rule  again  over  the  free  capital 
of  Massachusetts. 

You  can  imagine  how  glad  the  patriotic  Americans  of  Boston 
were — those  who  had  been  shut  in  there  with  the  Tories  and  the 
“  redcoats  ”  —  when  they  saw  General  Washington  come  marching 
in  at  the  head  of  his  troops  after  the  British  ships  were  gone. 
Some  of  these  Boston  people  had  fathers,  husbands,  sons,  in  the 
army,  and  there  was  much  thankfulness,  and  many  tears  shed  for 
joy,  at  meeting  with  dear  friends  who  had  been  parted  in  these  hard 
days. 

The  old  British  flag,  which  had  once  been  so  dear,  was  hauled 
down  from  all  its  high  places,  and  publicly 
burned,  and  a  new  American  flag  hoisted  in  its 
stead.  The  new  flag  had  still  the  British  em¬ 
blem  in  the  corner,  where  our  stars  now  adorn 
it,  but  it  had  thirteen  gorgeous  stripes,  of  red 
and  white,  to  represent  the  thirteen  colonies. 

Afterwards  the  British  “  union-jack  ”  was  taken 
from  the  corner,  and  thirteen  stars  on  a  blue 
ground  put  in  its  place.  Wre  add  a  new  star 
for  every  new  State,  and  our  banner  is  now  al¬ 
most  as  thick  with  stars  as  the  milky  way. 

Thus  our  flag  (which  we  are  proud  to  think 
the  handsomest  in  the  world)  has  grown  to  its 

.  The  Stars  and  Stripes. 

present  beauty. 

In  April,  Washington  concluded  to  leave  a  sufficient  number  of 
troops  in  Boston  to  protect  the  town,  and  remove  with  the  main 
part  of  his  army  to  New  York.  He  accordingly  did  so,  and  made 
his  head-quarters  in  a  handsome  house  on  “  Richmond  Hill,”  two 
miles  from  the  city.  To-day  the  site  of  the  once  handsome  country 
mansion  is  the  corner  of  Varick  and  Charlton  Streets,  one  of  the 
dingiest  and  most  crowded  thoroughfares  of  the  great  metropolis. 

General  Putnam  also  took  up  his  quarters  near  the  Battery.  This 
bluff  old  soldier  had  brought  his  wife  and  daughters,  and  with  him 


220 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


they  were  busy  spinning  flax,  day  after  day,  providing  linen  to 
make  shirts  for  the  army.  Mrs.  Washington  was  also  in  New  York. 
She  was  a  rich  woman,  with  great  estates  in  Virginia,  but  she  was 
never  idle,  and  in  her  leisure  moments  kept  her  knitting-work  at 
hand.  Ah  !  these  are  women  worth  reading  about,  who  were  ready 
to  aid  the  cause  of  liberty  both  with  heart  and  hand. 

The  British  army  was  now  pouring  troops  into  America.  Gen¬ 
eral  Cornwallis  and  Sir  Peter  Parker  had  been  sent  from  England 
with  a  large  body  of  men.  A  brother  of  General  Howe  was  made 
lord  admiral  of  the  English  fleet.  Sir  Henry  Clinton  had  been 
sent  to  South  Carolina  with  ten  ships.  An  army  of  17,000  Ger¬ 
mans  from  Hesse-Cassel,  under  command  of  General  De  Hiester  had 
been  hired  by  the  English  to  help  do  their  American  fighting.  All 
these  new  recruits,  added  to  the  army  already  in  Canada,  made  a 
force  that  looked  almost  overpowering,  in  comparison  with  the 
Americans. 

As  I  said  before,  Sir  Henry  Clinton  sailed  south  with  his  ten 
ships.  There  had  already  been  some  fighting  in  North  Carolina, 
and  the  people  in  all  the  southern  colonies  were  up  in  arms  and 
waiting  for  the  coming  struggle.  Clinton  was  going  down  there  to 

attack  Charleston,  South  Carolina,  hoping 
if  he  could  bring  their  largest  town  into  sub¬ 
jection,  he  could  soon  take  the  whole  col¬ 
on  }T.  But  they  were  ready  for  him.  As 
soon  as  Clinton's  fleet  appeared  in  sight, 
'  the  guns  from  Fort  Sullivan  opened  on  him. 
There  was  hot  firing  and  a  sharp  struggle. 
In  the  midst  of  it  a  ball  from  one  of 
General  Moultrie.  Clinton’s  ships  struck  the  flagstaff  which 
was  raised  over  the  fort  and  cut  it  in  two,  so  that  the  banner 
fell  outside  the  walls.  It  lay  there  for  a  moment  with  the  hot 
fire  from  the  enemy  playing  upon  the  wall  under  which  it  lay. 
Only  for  a  moment  however,  for  Sergeant  Jasper  leaped  the  inclos¬ 
ure,  snatched  up  the  colors,  and  bearing  them  safely  inside,  ran 
them  up  in  sight  again,  where  they  waved  gayly  over  the  smoke  and 
din  of  battle. 

The  day  ended  in  triumph,  and  the  British  ships  were  forced  to 
withdraw.  They  had  met  so  warm  a  reception,  that  for  two  years 
they  let  the  Carolinas  alone.  As  for  Colonel  Moultrie,  commander 
of  the  fort,  he  received  the  thanks  of  Congress,  and  the  fort  was 
afterwards  named  for  him,  and  bears  the  name  of  Moultrie  to-day. 


INDEPENDENCE  DECLARED. 


221 


CHAPTER  XLI. 

INDEPENDENCE  DECLARED. 

Colonial  Feeling  towards  England. — The  Declaration  of  Independence.  —  Our  National  Holi¬ 
day.  —  Retreat  from  Kipp’s  Landing.  —  Anger  of  Washington.  —  Mrs.  Murray’s  Ruse  to  save 
General  Putnam.  —  Retreat  through  New  Jersey.  —  A  Gloomy  Outlook  for  Washington.  — 
Bad  News  from  Newport  and  Lake  Champlain.  — Prison  Ships.  —  Washington  crosses  the 
Delaware.  —  Victory  at  Trenton. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  war  with  England 
there  were  very  few  men  in  the  United  Col¬ 
onies  who  had  any  idea  of  becoming  free  and 
independent  states,  entirely  separate  and  dis¬ 
tinct  from  the  power  of  England.  They  were 
resolved  they  would  not  yield  to  unjust  taxa¬ 
tion,  but  beyond  that  they  thought  very  little 
about  the  future  of  the  colonies.  Most  of  these 
Liberty  Beii.  people  loved  England  as  their  country  and 

spoke  of  her  tenderly,  as  “-1101116”  and  the  “mother-land.”  But 
since  the  battles  of  Lexington  and  Bunker  Hill,  there  had  been 
a  growing  feeling,  that  if  the  Americans  were  to  fight  for  their 
rights,  they  must  not  fight  as  “  rebels  ”  against  a  government 
whose  power  over  them  in  many  respects  they  acknowledged,  but 
as  free  and  independent  states,  who  had  a  right  to  govern  them¬ 
selves,  and  were  ready  to  prove  the  right  at  the  cannon’s  mouth. 

In  July  of  1776  Congress  met  together,  and  after  much  debate 
what  they  should  do  about  it,  agreed  to  declare  “  that  they  were, 
and  ought  to  be,  free  and  independent  states.”  There  were  many 
members  in  Congress,  as  well  as  in  the  colonies,  very  much  opposed 
to  this  declaration,  but  those  in  favor  of  it  finally  triumphed,  and  a 
committee,  consisting  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  Benjamin  Franklin,  John 
Adams,  Roger  Sherman,  and  Robert  Livingston,  was  appointed  to 
write  out  the  “  Declaration  of  Independence.”  Every  American 
citizen  has  read  this  “  Declaration  of  Independence,”  and  is  famil¬ 
iar  with  its  ringing  sentences.  It  is  one  of  the  simplest  yet  grand¬ 
est  statements  of  a  people’s  right  to  liberty,  ever  written,  and 
covers  with  honor  the  names  of  the  men  who  wrote  it. 

After  this  paper  had  been  presented  to  Congress,  all  the  members 
signed  it.  It  was  a  dangerous  thing  to  do,  for  if  they  failed  in  the 
war  with  Great  Britain,  every  man  who  had  his  name  signed  to 
this  document  would  certainly  be  hung  as  a  rebel.  But  none  there 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


900 

were  cowards.  John  Hancock  signed  his  name  in  strong  bold  signa¬ 
ture,  and  not  one  hand  looks  as  if  it  had  faltered.  Stephen  Hop¬ 
kins's  signature  looks  a  little  tremulous,  but  that  was  because  he 
was  an  old  man  and  had  had  a  stroke  of  palsy. 


Independence  Hall. 


You  should  have  heard  the  old  bell  in  the  belfry  at  Philadelphia 
ring  out  its  joy  peal,  when  it  was  announced  that  the  Declaration 
was  signed.  As  fast  as  the  messenger  could  ride  from  Philadelphia 
to  New  York,  as  fast  as  the  news  could  be  sent  to  Massachusetts, 
Virginia,  and  the  Carolinas,  one  after  the  other,  the  bells  in  all  the 
church-steeples  took  up  the  peal  of  the  big  bell  in  Philadelphia, 
and  rang  out  the  anthem  of  Freedom  all  over  the  land.  The  boys 
lit  bonfires  at  night,  and  the  cannons  blazed  by  day.  In  every  way 
the  heart  of  the  people  tried  to  show  how  it  beat  for  joy  at  the  fact 
that  they  were  now  united  to  throw  off  the  yoke  of  English  tyranny 
and  be  a  free  nation.  The  Declaration  was  signed  on  the  4th  of 


INDEPENDENCE  DECLARED. 


223 


July,  1776,  and  John  Adams,  who  was  one  of  the  men  who  helped 
draw  it  up,  wrote  to  his  wife,  “  This  day  ought  to  be  celebrated 
with  pomp,  games,  sports,  guns,  bells,  bonfires,  and  illuminations, 
from  one  end  of  the  continent  to  the  other,  from  this  time  forward 
forever.”  It  is  our  national  holiday,  the  4th  of  July,  of  which 
Adams  writes. 

All  summer  long  after  the  Declaration,  the  British  kept  gathering 
their  forces  about  New  York  city.  General  Howe  returned  from 
Halifax  ;  Lord  Henry  Clinton  came  up  with  his  ships  from  the 
siege  of  Charleston  ;  Lord  Cornwallis  and  the  Earl  Percy  marched 
their  troops  thither,  and  General  De  Hiester,  with  his  band  of  Hes¬ 
sians,  whom  the  Americans  hated  worst  of  all  those  who  were  to 
fight  against  them,  also  joined  them.  The  Americans  were  occupy¬ 
ing  New  York  city,  and  Long  Island  and  Governor’s  Island  close 
by.  The  British,  who  had  got  a  foothold  on  Staten  Island,  now 
took  active  measures  to  drive  the  Americans  away  from  their  strong 
points.  They  landed  first  on  Long  Island,  where  General  Sullivan 
was  commanding  a  large  body  of  patriots.  There  was  a  fight,  in 
which  the  Americans  were  driven  to  take  refuge  inside  their  lines 
in  the  city  of  Brooklyn.  Washington  knew  his  army  was  not  strong 
enough  to  hold  Brooklyn,  and  in  the  afternoon,  while  the  fight  was 
still  raging,  he  crossed  the  river  from  New  York,  to  see  what  could 
be  done.  He  decided  at  once  to  remove  his  army  to  New  York 
city,  from  Brooklyn.  Under  cover  of  night  he  managed  the  trans¬ 
portation  of  nine  thousand  men,  with  all  their  baggage  and  arms, 
over  the  East  River  to  New  York,  and  did  it  so  quietly  that  the 
British,  who  were  asleep  in  tlieir  tents  not  five  hundred  yards  off, 
never  waked  up.  Fortunately,  too,  there  was  a  very  heavy  fog 
which  covered  the  river  from  two  o’clock  till  daylight,  and  when 
it  lifted,  and  the  British  began  to  wake  up  and  get  breakfast,  all 
the  Yankees  were  flown. 

Next,  the  British  crossed  to  attack  New  York.  They  made  their 
first  attempt  at  Thirty-fourth  Street,  New  York  city  ;  it  was  then 
called  Kipp’s  Landing.  When  the  guard  stationed  there  saw  Gen¬ 
eral  Howe’s  troops  putting  in  for  the  Landing,  they  began  a  wretched 
and  disorderly  retreat,  without  trying  to  keep  the  enemy  off. 
Washington  rode  in  front  of  them,  shouted  at  them,  waved  his  gun, 
snapped  his  pistol  in  their  faces,  called  them  “  cowards,”  but  it  was 
of  no  use.  They  ran  like  sheep.  Then  Washington,  in  a  great  anger 

threw  his  hat  upon  the  ground,  and  cried,  “  Are  these  the  men  with 

15 


224 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


whom  I  am  to  defend  America.”  He  was  so  unconscious  of  danger, 
as  he  sat  there  looking  after  his  retreating  men,  that  he  might  have 
been  taken  prisoner,  or  killed,  if  one  of  his  aides-de-camp  had  not 
seized  his  horse’s  reins  and  fairly  dragged  him  off  the  field. 

When  the  British  began  to  land  in  New  York,  brave  old  General 
Putnam  led  one  division  out  of  the  city  by  the  Hudson  River  road. 
He  was  to  meet  Washington  at  a  certain  point,  and  they  were  then 
to  join  in  a  retreat  up  the  river.  It  happened  that  at  this  very  time 
a  party  of  British,  more  than  double  the  number  of  General  Put¬ 
nam’s  men,  were  coming  down  this  very  road.  Governor  Tryon,  the 
royal  governor  of  New  York,  was  in  this  party.  If  Putnam  should 
meet  the  British  army  before  he  reached  a  certain  turn  in  the  road, 
where  he  was  to  branch  off  to  join  Washington,  he  would  certainly 
be  captured.  Fortunately,  on  the  way  down,  the  British  army 
passed  the  house  of  Mrs.  Robert  Murray ,  a  lady  who  was  a  stanch 
rebel,  although  she  was  a  Quaker,  and  did  not  approve  of  wars  or 
fighting.  She  knew  General  Putnam  was  coming  up,  unaware  of 
his  danger,  and  that  Governor  Tryon  and  his  men  were  marching 
down,  unconscious  of  the  prize  which  might  fall  into  their  clutches. 
When  the  British  neared  her  mansion,  she  went  out  to  the  British 
governor  and  officers,  and  politely  invited  them  in  to  luncheon.  It 
was  very  hot  August  weather.  She  had  delicious  cake,  wine,  and 
many  tempting  viands,  spread  for  them.  Their  men  could  rest  in 
the  cool  shade  of  the  groves  and  orchards  round  her  house.  It  was 
too  pleasant  to  resist,  and  they  all  rested  and  talked  ;  and  Governor 
Tryon  laughed  at  Mrs.  Murray  because  she  had  been  said  to  sym¬ 
pathize  with  the  <k  dirty  rebels ;  ”  and  Mrs.  Murray  laughed  and 
joked  back  again,  while  all  the  time,  step  by  step,  General  Putnam 
was  nearing  that  turn  in  the  road  which  meant  safety  to  him  and 
his  men.  When  the  British  officers  said  “  Good-by  ”  to  Mrs.  Murray, 
mounted  their  horses,  and  shouted  “  march  on  ”  to  their  men,  Put¬ 
nam  had  just  turned  the  corner,  and  was  safe  on  his  way  to  the 
commander-in-chief.  So  it  was  said  afterward  that  “  Mrs.  Murray 
saved  General  Putnam  and  the  American  cause  that  day.” 

The  British  now  held  New  York  city,  and  the  Americans  were 
obliged  to  retreat  northward.  Washington  put  a  strong  garrison 
into  Fort  Washington  on  the  banks  of  the  Hudson,  and  went  to 
pitch  his  tents  on  White  Plains.  But  the  great  army  of  redcoats 
followed  him  up.  They  drove  him  from  White  Plains,  and  then 
went  down  and  took  Fort  Washington, — another  severe  loss  to  the 
patriot  cause. 


INDEPENDENCE  DECLARED. 


225 


Then  Washington  was  obliged  to  flee  before  the  British  army 
for  weeks.  He  knew  it  was  useless  to  stand  and  give  battle.  The 
enemy  too  greatly  outnumbered  him.  Day  by  day  his  army  was 
growing  smaller.  The  time  of  enlistment  of  many  of  his  regiments 
expired,  and  the  men,  disheartened,  woidd  not  enlist  again,  but 
threw  down  their  guns  and  went  home. 

These  were  gloomy  days  for  Washington  and  his  fellow-patriots. 
I  wonder  he  was  not  discouraged  enough  to  give  up  his  sword  and 
surrender  to  the  British.  But  his  invincible  spirit  was  always  equal 
to  the  test,  and  he  wore  just  the  same  serene  countenance,  when  on 
a  bitter  cold  day  in  December  he  passed  through  the  town  of  Tren¬ 
ton,  New  Jersey,  and  crossing  the  Delaware  River  at  that  point, 
encamped  on  the  Pennsylvania  shore,  with  his  army  of  half-starved 
and  half-frozen  men,  in  the  comfortless  winter  twilight.  Just  as 
his  last  boat-load  of  men  left  the  Trenton  side,  General  Howe  with 
his  army  entered  the  other  extremity  of  the  town,  with  flying  colors 
and  beating  drums. 

In  the  mean  time,  discouraging  news  came  from  the  North.  Sir 
Peter  Parker  had  sailed  from  Fort  Moultrie  to  Newport,  and  taken 
that  gallant  seaport  of  Rhode  Island.  From  Lake  Champlain,  where 
Colonel  Benedict  Arnold  had  been  commanding  a  fleet,  bad  news 
came  also.  Arnold  had  sixteen  small  vessels  on  the  lake,  with 
which  he  had  endeavored  to  protect  Crown  Point.  He  had  failed 
in  this ;  and  the  British  now  held  all  the  strong  points  on  the  lake. 
From  thence,  they  hoped  to  descend  upon  Albany,  and  hold  all 
the  country  down  the  Hudson  to  New  York  city.  Arnold  had 
cheated  the  British  out  of  his  little  fleet,  however.  In  a  dark  and 
foggy  night  he  had  slipped  through  the  enemy’s  lines,  run  all  his 
ships  ashore,  set  them  on  fire,  and  saw  every  one  burn  to  the  water’s 
edge  before  he  would  give  them  up  to  the  British. 

During  the  year  the  English  had  taken  many  hundreds  of  prison¬ 
ers,  and  accounts  of  the  way  in  which  his  men  were  treated,  con¬ 
stantly  reached  Washington’s  ears.  The  Americans  were  confined 
in  the  vilest  of  prisons,  or,  worse  still,  in  “  prison  ships,”  which  were 
anchored  in  harbors  held  by  the  British  fleets.  One  of  these  “  prison 
ships,”  called  the  Jersey ,  outdid  all  the  others  in  horror.  It  was 
dirty  beyond  description,  and  our  men  were  thrust' into  its  hold  like 
pigs  in  a  pen,  with  no  air,  except  what  came  in  at  small  gratings. 
It  smelled  so  foully  that  no  one  could  enter  the  place  without  becom¬ 
ing  sick  ;  and  there,  furnished  with  wretched  food  and  impure  water, 


226 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


our  men  sickened  and  died  by  hundreds.  Even  some  of  the  British 
wrote  letters  of  remonstrance  against  this  manner  of  treating  ene¬ 
mies  of  war. 

Thus  matters  stood  in  December,  1776.  It  was  a  dark  out-look 
for  the  friends  of  liberty,  and  gave  joy  and  encouragement  to  the 
British  and  their  Tory  friends.  But  as  the  Christmas  holidays 
drew  near,  and  the  cold  grew  more  severe,  Washington  formed  a 
plan  which  would  decide  the  fate  of  the  American  army.  He  knew 
that  the  forces  over  in  Trenton,  under  British  command,  were  largely 
composed  of  the  hated  Hessians.  He  knew  that,  according  to  their 
National  custom,  they  would  keep  Christmas  holidays  in  great  mer- 
.  riment,  and  he  resolved  then  to  strike  a  decisive  blow.  He  made 
all  his  preparations  to  cross  the  river  on  Christmas  Eve,  but  the 
river  was  so  full  of  ice  it  delayed  him  several  hours,  and  he  did  not 
start  until  the  evening  of  the  25th.  It  was  a  dark  night,  with  flakes 
of  snow  occasionally  falling.  The  river  was  full  of  broken  masses 
of  ice,  through  which  their  boats  struggled  with  difficulty.  It  was 
four  o’clock  in  the  morning  when  the  last  boat-load  of  men  reached 
the  Trenton  shore.  They  crept  silently  along  the  bank  to  where 
the  Hessians  lay,  tired  out  with  Christmas  revelry,  and  thus  burst 
suddenly  upon  their  unsuspecting  enemy.  It  was  a  glorious  vic¬ 
tory.  The  Hessians  were  captured  almost  before  they  could  rub 
their  eyes  open.  Washington  lost  hardly  ten  men  in  all,  and  cap¬ 
tured  almost  one  thousand  Hessians,  besides  cannon,  guns,  and  am¬ 
munition.  The  Hessians  were  sent  off  for  winter-quarters  into  cen¬ 
tral  Pennsylvania,  where  they  found  many  German  settlers  who 
treated  them  kindly,  and  spoke  their  own  language.  They  had  a 
very  comfortable  time  there,  and  always  spoke  of  Washington  as  “  a 
very  good  rebel.” 

After  his  victory  Washington  recrossed  the  river  for  a  few  days, 
but  finally  returned,  and  took  up  his  quarters  for  the  rest  of  the 
winter  in  Trenton.  Thus  the  year  1776,  which  had  seemed  so 
dark  to  the  Americans,  ended  with  new  hope  and  brightness,  which 
came  from  Washington’s  success  in  “  crossing  the  Delaware .” 


EVENTS  IN  NEW  JERSEY  AND  PENNSYLVANIA  IN  1777.  227 


CHAPTER  XLII. 

EVENTS  IN  NEW  JERSEY  AND  PENNSYLVANIA  IN  1777. 


Rebels  and  Redcoats  in  Friendly  Converse.  —  Battle  of  Princeton.  —  Washington  at  Morristown. 
—  The  Marquis  de  Lafayette.  —  Other  Noble  Foreigners.  —  Defeat  at  Brandywine.  —  Story 
of  Lydia  Darrah.  —  Good  News  on  the  Way. 


On  the  first  day  of  the  new  year  (1777),  Washington  was  en¬ 
camped  at  Trenton.  Although  he  had  won  this  fine  victory  over 
the  Hessians,  his  army  was  in  bad  condition.  The  new  recruits 
came  in  slowly  and  rather  unwillingly,  and  when  they  did  come 
were  very  raw  material  for  soldiers,  and  must  undergo  incessant 
drill  till  they  were  taught  what  military  discipline  meant. 

As  soon  as  he  heard  of  the  victory  over  the  Hessians,  the  British 
general  who  commanded  the  New  Jersey  division  of  the  army,  drew 
all  his  forces  together  at  Princeton,  another  town  in  New  Jersey, 
eleven  miles  from  Trenton.  This  British  officer  was  Lord  Corn¬ 
wallis,  a  brave  gentleman,  who  had  opposed  in  England  the  policy 
which  led  to  the  American  war,  but  nevertheless  would  not  refuse 
to  take  part  in  it  when  his  regiment  was  ordered  to  sail  for  the  col¬ 
onies. 

Cornwallis  found  that  Washington  was  settling  down  in  Trenton, 
apparently  disposed  to  stay  there,  and  on  the  second  of  January 
he  sent  a  large  body  of  troops  to  attack  him.  They  had  a  little 
skirmishing  during  the  day,  but  as  night  came  on  both  armies  began 
to  get  supper  and  make  preparations  for  a  night  encampment,  with 
only  a  narrow  stream  of  water  between  them.  You  must  not  im¬ 
agine  that  two  armies  are  always  quarreling.  When  the  generals 
do  not  give  the  command  to  advance  or  attack,  the  privates  of 
opposing  armies  are  often  on  very  good  terms  with  each  other. 
When  the  British  and  Yankees  found  themselves  encamped  on  oppo¬ 
site  sides  of  a  stream,  they  often  addressed  each  other  very  amicably 
as  “  redcoats  ”  and  “  rebels.”  In  New  York  when  the  armies  lay 
so  close  together  before  Washington’s  retreat  to  White  Plains,  they 
exchanged  many  civilities  in  the  shape  of  packages  of  tobacco,  which 
they  would  convey  across  the  Harlem  River  from  one  camp  to 
another.  Thus,  after  some  not  unfriendly  interchanges  of  this  kind, 
the  two  armies  sunk  into  repose  at  Trenton. 

Meanwhile  Washington  was  very  anxious.  He  knew  he  had  not 
disciplined  men  enough  to  meet  the  army  at  daybreak,  and  he  saw 


228 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


they  meant  to  force  him  to  battle.  What  should  he  do?  He  called 
a  council  of  his  officers  in  his  tent,  and  while  the  camp-fires  burned 
brightly  and  the  men  slept  soundly,  they  talked  the  matter  over. 
Cornwallis  had  taken  the  best  part  of  his  army  from  Princeton  and 
left  a  small  force  there.  How  would  it  answer  to  wake  the  army 
about  midnight,  steal  a  silent  march  to  Princeton,  capture  the  Brit¬ 
ish  there  and  hold  the  town  ?  This  suggestion  was  approved.  The 
Americans  were  aroused.  The  camp-fires  were  built  high  in  order 
that  the  British  might  fancy  from  their  light  that  the  army  still  re¬ 
mained  to  feed  them,  and  one  hour  after  midnight  Washington  was 
on  his  march  to  Princeton.  The  winter  was  mild,  and  the  roads  had 
been  very  muddy,  but  by  good  fortune  the  weather  grew  cold,  dur¬ 
ing  the  night  the  road  stiffened  and  froze  smooth,  and  the  heavy 
artillery,  otherwise  so  difficult  to  move,  rolled  lightly  over  the  hard 
ground  as  if  it  were  a  polished  floor. 

When  they  reached  Princeton,  the  remnant  of  the  British  left 
there  were  preparing  to  march  to  Trenton.  They  drew  up  outside 
the  town  on  seeing  the  approach  of  the  Americans,  and  awaited 
their  attack.  At  first,  victory  seemed  to  lie  with  the  British  ;  when 
Washington  came  into  the  field  with  a  fresh  body  of  men,  the  Brit¬ 
ish  were  driven  from  their  position,  and  the  Americans  gained  the 
day.  Washington  grieved  at  the  death  of  one  brave  officer,  Gen¬ 
eral  Hugh  Mercer,  who  was  covered  with  wounds,  and  fell  with  his 
head  broken  and  disfigured  by  blows  from  a  clubbed  musket  given 
him  after  he  was  wounded. 

Cornwallis  followed  closely  on  Washington’s  heels,  but  he  had 
already  left  the  scene  of  battle  and  gone  to  Morristown,  burning  all 
bridges  behind  him.  At  Morristown  he  made  his  winter-quarters. 
The  Jersey  people,  who  had  been  greatly  outraged  by  the  conduct  of 
the  British  army  in  ravaging  their  farms  and  destroying  their 
stores,  flocked  to  Washington  with  offers  of  food  and  assistance. 
The  militia  of  New  Jersey  added  their  efforts  to  the  army.  Wash¬ 
ington  was  able  to  fortify  Elizabeth,  Newark,  and  the  other  towns 
about  him,  and  Cornwallis,  seeing  that  an  attack  would'  be  unwise, 
gave  up  New  Jersey  and  withdrew. 

Washington  remained  all  the  winter  and  spring  of  1777  at  Mor¬ 
ristown.  The  main  portion  of  the  English  army  was  in  New  York 
under  General  Howe;  and  the  English  fleet  under  Admiral  Howe 
rode  at  anchor  in  New  York  harbor.  This  fleet  was  a  constant 
source  of  anxiety  to  Washington.  He  was  not  sure  but  it  might  at 


EVENTS  IN  NEW  JERSEY  AND  PENNSYLVANIA  IN  1777.  229 

any  time  attack  one  of  the  large  commercial  towns  of  Boston,  Phila¬ 
delphia,  or  Charleston. 

Howe’s  real  design  was  to  get  possession  of  Philadelphia,  the  seat 
of  Congress,  but  he  kept  making  movements  to  deceive  Washington, 
and  blind  him  to  his  intention.  Washington  came  out  of  Morris¬ 
town  in  May,  strengthened  his  army  in  New  York  in  order  to  pro¬ 
tect  the  Hudson,  and  hovered  about  New  Jersey  trying  to  find  out 
what  Howe  was  going  to  do.  All  summer  long  the  armies  were 
like  two  cats,  who  were  stealthily  waiting  to  spring  whenever  one 
should  find  the  other  off  his  guard  for  a  moment. 

During  the  summer  of  1777,  Washington  met  for  the  first  time  a 
most  important  friend  and  ally  to  the  American  cause.  This  was 
the  young  Marquis  de  Lafayette,  a  Frenchman,  who  had  so  great 
love  for  liberty  that  the  struggle  of  America  to  be  free  roused 
all  his  sympathy.  He  was  a  nobleman,  young,  wealthy,  and  just 
married  to  a  beautiful  girl  of  eighteen.  He  was  himself  little  more 
than  nineteen  years  old.  When  he  met  a  group  of  Americans  in 
France  who  were  trying  to  interest  Frenchmen  in  our  country,  he 
said,  “  I  have  always  held  the  cause  of  America  dear ;  now  I  go  to 
serve  it  personally.” 

He  left  his  estates,  his  country,  and  his  wife,  and  taking  with 
him  a  large  sum  of  ready  money,  sailed  for  this  country.  When  he 
arrived  he  gave  freely  for  the  clothing  and  equipments  of  the  troops 
in  South  Carolina.  He  sent  $12,000  to  Washington  to  aid  him  in 
paying  off  his  soldiers,  and  he  wrote  to  Congress  asking  permission 
to  fight  in  their  armies,  saying,  “  The  moment  I  heard  of  America, 
I  loved  her.  The  moment  I  heard  she  was  fighting  for  liberty,  I 
burned  with  a  desire  to  bleed  for  her.” 

This  glorious  young  man,  whose  name  is  dear  to  America  from 
that  day,  Washington  met  in  Philadelphia  at  a  dinner  given  him  on 
the  3d  of  August. 

In  the  same  ship  which  brought  Lafayette,  many  other  noble 
foreigners  came  also.  Among  these  were  several  Polish  gentlemen, 
who  had  fought  for  liberty  in  their  own  unhappy  country,  and  were 
the  warm  friends  of  America.  •  One  of  them  was  the  Count  Pulaski, 
who  entered  the  army  at  once  as  a  volunteer.  Baron  de  Kalb,  a 
French  officer  of  rank  and  great  bravery,  was  among  those  who 
offered  the  service  of  his  sword  to  Washington.  The  sympathy  and 
advice  of  these  brave  soldiers  must  have  greatly  aided  and  en¬ 
couraged  our  general. 


230 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


As  soon  as  it  was  seen  that  Howe  was  moving  toward  Philadel¬ 
phia,  Congress  was  urgent  that  Washington  should  make  a  gallant 
defense  there.  Washington  was  not  yet  quite  ready  to  fight,  but  he 
could  not  withstand  Congress,  and  when  he  saw  the  British  forces 
approach,  he  brought  his  army  to  the  bank  of  Brandywine  Creek, 
and  made  a  stand  there. 

On  the  lltli  of  September  the  two  armies  met  at  Brandywine, 
and  here  the  American  troops  suffered  one  of  the  severest  defeats  in 
the  war.  They  were  driven  back  to  take  refuge  in  Philadelphia, 
and  lost  1,400  men  in  killed,  wounded,  and  prisoners.  General 
Lafayette  was  wounded  in  the  leg,  but  not  dangerously.  He  fought 
gallantly,  receiving  the  thanks  of  Congress  for  his  bravery.  Count 
Pulaski  shared  with  him  the  thanks  of  the  country  for  his  services 
on  that  field. 

The  British,  elated  with  success  at  Brandywine  Creek,  marched 
on  toward  Philadelphia.  Washington,  rested  and  refreshed,  and 
strengthened  by  troops  sent  from  New  Jersey  and  Pennsylvania, 
went  out  of  the  city  prepared  to  meet  the  enemy  again.  It  is  said 
that  our  commander-in-chief  was  never  so  firmly  resolved  on  victory 
as  after  the  defeat  at  Brandywine.  But  a  terrible  rain-storm  overtook 
his  army,  and  before  they  could  guard  against  it,  their  guns  and 
powder  were  wet  and  almost  ruined.  Washington  was  forced  to 
give  up  all  show  of  battle.  Howe  pushed  on  rapidly.  Congress 
gathered  up  its  papers,  and  hurried  away  to  Lancaster,  to  avoid 
being  taken  prisoners,  just  before  a  division  of  the  conquering  red¬ 
coats  under  Cornwallis,  marched  into  Philadelphia,  to  the  victorious 
music  of  their  drums  and  fifes.  On  their  way  to  the  city  they  had 
met  a  small  portion  of  Washington’s  forces,  under  General  Wayne, 
and  had  killed  three  hundred  of  our  men,  almost  without  loss  to  them¬ 
selves.  The  clouds  hung  very  dark  over  our  army  at  this  time. 

Part  of  Howe’s  army  now  were  posted  in  Germantown,  three 
miles  from  Philadelphia,  and  Washington  was  only  eleven  miles 
away.  Lie  marched  upon  Howe,  hoping  to  surprise  him  and  gain  a 
victory  there.  Fortune  seemed  everywhere  unfavorable.  At  first, 
indeed,  the  Americans  were  successful,  but  in  the  end,  they  were 
obliged  to  retreat,  and  the  battle  of  Germantown  was  almost  as 
fatal  as  that  of  Brandywine.  This  was  early  in  the  month  of  Octo¬ 
ber,  and  nearly  all  that  had  been  gained  at  Princeton  and  Trenton 
seemed  lost  to  our  arms  by  the  successes  of  the  British  in  Pennsyl¬ 
vania.  The  Americans  held  two  forts  on  the  Delaware  River,  Forts 


EVENTS  IN  NEW  JERSEY  AND  PENNSYLVANIA  IN  1777.  2ol 

Mifflin  and  Mercer,  and  they  hoped  by  keeping  these  to  cut  General 
Howe  off  from  any  communication  with  the  sea.  Even  here  they 
were  disappointed,  for  Howe,  seeing  the  importance  of  the  forts  as 
clearly  as  Washington  did,  sent  an  overpowering  force  down  and 
captured  them  both  before  the  close  of  November.  Howe  now  made 
himself  comfortable  for  the  winter  in  the  pleasant  mansions  of  Phila¬ 
delphia,  while  Washington  remained  for  a  time  at  White  Marsh. 

While  the  armies  lay  in  this  position,  Washington  was  once  very 
near  being  surprised,  and  perhaps  would  have  been  totally  destroyed, 
if  he  had  not  been  warned  and  put  on  his  guard  by  a  woman  who 
risked  her  life  to  save  him.  This  woman  was  Lydia  Darrah,  of 
Philadelphia,  a  member  of  the  Societ}^  of  Quakers,  many  of  whom, 
while  holding  war  a  sin,  gave  their  prayers  and  all  their  influence  to 
the  cause  of  liberty.  Lydia  Darrah  lived  opposite  the  house  where 
General  Howe  had  his  quarters,  and  one  of  his  principal  officers  had 
rooms  at  her  house.  One  evening  this  officer  instructed  her  to  send 
her  family  to  bed  early,  see  that  there  was  a  good  fire  and  candles 
burning  in  his  room,  and  be  ready  to  admit  General  Howe,  and  let 
him  out  again  secretly  when  he  was  ready  to  depart.  Lydia  obeyed 
all  these  directions.  When  night  came  she  let  General  Howe  in  at 
her  front  door,  locked  it  after  him,  and  when  he  was  safely  in  his 
officer’s  apartment,  she  took  off  her  shoes,  crept  softly  up-stairs, 
and  listened  at  the  keyhole.  There  she  heard  them  plan  to  sur¬ 
prise  Washington,  and  take  him  and  his  whole  army.  When  she 
had  heard  enough,  she  went  trembling  to  bed,  and  was  apparently 
so  sound  asleep  that  the  officer  had  to  knock  again  and  again,  when 
he  came  to  rouse  her  to  let  General  Howe  out  of  the  house. 

Next  day  good  Mrs.  Darrah  got  a  pass  from  General  Howe  to  go 
to  mill  and  get  some  flour  ground,  outside  the  lines  of  the  army  in 
Philadelphia.  Off  she  walked  with  a  bag  of  wheat  in  her  arms,  to 
the  outposts  of  the  patriot  army,  twenty-five  miles  away.  Meeting 
an  officer  there,  she  told  her  story,  and  begged  the  Americans  to 
put  Washington  at  once  on  his  guard.  When  Howe’s  forces 
marched  toward  White  Marsh,  with  the  greatest  secrecy,  they  found 
such  excellent  preparations  to  receive  them,  that  they  turned  round 
and  marched  back  again,  without  striking  a  blow. 

The  officer  questioned  Mrs.  Darrah.  41  Was  any  one  in  your 
house  stirring  the  night  General  Howe  was  here  ?  ”  “Not  a  soul,” 
she  answered.  “  Then  the  walls  of  this  house  must  have  heard  our 
plans,”  he  said,  “  for  some  one  reported  them  to  the  rebel  Washing- 


232 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


ton.  When  we  got  to  White  Marsh,  he  was  all  ready  for  us,  and 
we  all  marched  back  like  a  parcel  of  fools.” 

It  was  now  December,  and  the  winter  threatened  to  be  severe. 
Washington’s  campaign  of  1777  was  ended.  It  had  not  been  suc¬ 
cessful;  and  I  very  much  fear  the  war  would  have  ended  in  total 
ruin  to  our  cause,  if  glorious  news  had  not  come  from  the  north  in 
the  month  of  October  previous.  I  must  go  back  a  little  and  tell 
-  you  what  had  been  happening  elsewhere,  while  Washington  was  in 
the  Jerseys  and  Pennsylvania. 


CHAPTER  XLIII. 

BURGOYNE’S  CAMPAIGN. 

The  Burning  of  Danbury.  —  General  Burgoyne.  —  The  Tory  Brant.  —  Burgoyne  takes  Ticon- 
deroga.  —  Defense  of  Fort  Stanwix.  —  Brave  General  Herkimer.  —  Massacre  of  Jane 
McCrea. — Murmurs  against  General  Schuyler. — The  Relief  of  Fort  Stanwix.  —  Stark’s 
Speech  at  Bennington.  —  The  Encampment  on  Bemis  Heights.  —  Battle  of  Saratoga.  —  Sur¬ 
render  of  Burgoyne. 

We  have  seen  how  unfortunate  Washington’s  campaign  has  been 
during  the  year  1777.  We  will  now  leave  him  for  a  time,  and  look 
after  the  British  operations  elsewhere  during  this  eventful  year. 
'Early  in  May,  Tryon,  the  Tory  governor  of  New  York,  was  sent 
to  Connecticut  to  capture  some  stores  at  Dan¬ 
bury.  Tryon  was  hated  by  the  Americans 
more  than  any  of  the  New  York  leaders,  because 
he  was  regarded  as  a  renegade  and  an  apostate. 
He  was  gallantly  met  by  Colonel  Benedict  Ar¬ 
nold  and  a  company  of  Connecticut  militia,  but 
he  had  already  burned  the  stores  at  Danbury, 
and  made  a  successful  retreat  to  New  York, 
doing  all  the  mischief  he  could  to  the  country  through  which  he 
passed. 

In  the  North,  on  the  Canada  border,  great  events  cast  their 
shadows  before.  General  John  Burgoyne  was  sent  from  England 
early  in  May,  with  a  picked  army,  great  stores  of  ammunition, 
and  the  finest  brass  cannon  yet  sent  over  to  subdue  the  rebels.  He 
was  a  fat,  pompous  man,  this  General  Burgoyne,  who  had  written 
a  comedy  or  two  in  his  own  country,  and  after  he  had  reached 
America  he  amused  himself  by  first  writing  a  long  proclamation  to 


BURGOYNE’S  CAMPAIGN. 


233 


the  Americans,  promising  them  what  he  would  do  if  they  would  lay 
down  their  arms  and  surrender  peaceably  to  the  British,  and  threat¬ 
ening  them  with  various  terrible  things,  among  the  rest  that  he 
would  let  the  Indians  loose  among  them,  if  they  refused  to  sur¬ 
render.  He  signed  his  proclamation  with  ten  or  fifteen  high  sound¬ 
ing  titles,  and  circulated  it  all  over  the  country.  This  document 
made  the  Americans  very  indignant,  especially  the  threat  about 
the  Indians,  and  the  patriotic  newspapers  made  fun  of  Burgoyne’s 
composition,  and  said  it  was  the  best  comedy  he  had  yet  written. 

The  plan  of  the  northern  campaign  was  the  one  most  dear  to 
the  British  commanders.  It  was  to  move  down  through  New  York 
from  Canada,  and  take  possession  of  the  Hudson  River  to  New 
York  city,  which  was  held  by  the  British.  In  that  way  they  would 
hold  all  the  province  of  New  York,  cut  New  England  off  from  the 
rest  of  the  colonies,  and  crush  her  into  subjection.  They  believed 
that  in  subduing  New  England,  they  should  strike  at  the  head  and 
heart  of  rebellion  and  kill  it  altogether. 

This  was  Burgoyne’s  plan,  and  he  had  made  an  arrangement 
with  Sir  Henry  Clinton,  who  commanded  the  fleet  at  the  mouth  of 
the  Hudson,  to  move  up  the  river  and  meet  him  at  Albany.  Let 
us  see  how  his  plan  succeeded. 

The  Americans  at  the  North  were  commanded  by  General 
Philip  Schuyler,  a  brave,  high-spirited  soldier,  with  the  blood  of 
the  plucky  Dutch  settlers  in  his  veins.  He  was  a  native  of  Albany, 
and  thoroughly  familiar  with  all  that  country.  He  was  now  sta¬ 
tioned  at  Fort  Edward,  the  head  of  boat  navigation  on  the  Hudson; 
and  Ticonderoga  and  Crown  Point,  poorly  garrisoned,  were  held 
by  his  troops. 

Burgoyne  divided  his  army  into  two  parts. 

He  commanded  in  person  the  first  division, 
which  was  to  keep  on  the  river.  The  com¬ 
mand  of  the  other  division  he  intrusted  to 
General  St.  Leger,  who  was  to  go  west, 
through  the  Mohawk  Valley,  and  take  the 
western  forts  in  New  York.  St.  Leger  ex- 
pected  to  be  greatly  aided  by  Sir  John  John¬ 
son,  a  son  of  the  famous  Sir  William  John¬ 
son,  who  had  been  so  popular  among  the 
Indians  in  the  French  wars.  The  Johnson  Joseph  Brant 

family  still  retained  their  Indian  influence,  and  as  they  were  vio- 


234 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


lent  Tories,  it  was  expected  that  hosts  of  the  Six  Nations  would 
dock  to  the  British  dag  under  Johnson.  There  was  also  a  famous 
Indian  chief  named  Brant,  commanding  the  Indians  here,  who  was 
a  close  friend  of  the  British,  and  the  whole  country  swarmed  with 
Tories,  who  were  formed  into  a  company  called  “  Johnson  Greens.” 
Thus  you  see  St.  Leger  had  a  fair  prospect  of  success.  The  forts 
against  which  he  was  marching  were  Fort  Stanwix  on  the  Mohawk 
River,  where  the  city  of  Rome  now  stands,  and  Fort  Oswego  on 
Lake  Erie. 

Burgoyne  went  down  to  besiege  Ticonderoga  with  an  army  ten 
thousand  strong.  General  St.  Clair,  commanding  the  fort,  had  only 
three  thousand.  One  warm  July  morning  he  saw  the  red  coats  and 
brass  cannon  of  the  British  glittering  on  the  peaked  top  of  Sugar 
Loaf  Hill  directly  overlooking  the  fort.  The  Americans  had  not 
fortided  this  hill,  because  they  thought  no  cannon  could  be  drawn 
to  its  steep  top.  St.  Clair  was  obliged  to  give  orders  to  evacuate 
the  fort,  and  led  his  men  and  all  the  stores  they  could  carry  away, 
over  to  Vermont.  They  left  their  stores  and  baggage  at  White¬ 
hall,  and  took  a  roundabout  way  to  Fort  Edward,  to  join  Schuyler 
there.  But  Burgoyne's  army  was  on  their  track.  They  followed 
and  captured  the  goods  left  at  Whitehall.  Then  General  Frazer, 
one  of  the  ablest  British  generals,  and  some  Germans,  under  the 
Hessian  General  Ridesel,  went  in  pursuit.  They  caught  the  Amer¬ 
icans  at  Hubbardston,  Vermont,  where  brave  Seth  Warner  turned 
and  gave  battle.  There  the  Americans  were  badly  beaten. 

In  the  loss  of  Ticonderoga,  the  stores  at  Whitehall,  and  the  men 
at  Hubbardston,  the  campaign  had  opened  brilliantly  for  Burgoyne, 
and  he  felt  jubilant.  There  were  many  in  the  American  camp 
who  complained  that  Schuyler  did  not  reinforce  Ticonderoga,  and 
grumbled  that  St.  Clair  did  not  strike  a  blow  in  its  defense. 

c5 

There  were  whispers  that  traitors  were  in  our  midst.  One  absurd 
report  was  circulated  that  Schuyler  and  St.  Clair  were  in  league 
with  the  British,  and  were  paid  for  treason  by  silver  balls  shot  into 
the  camp  from  British  guns. 

In  the  mean  time  St.  Leger  and  his  army  moved  on  toward  Stan¬ 
wix.  The  “  Johnson  Greens  ”  had  joined  them,  and  Brant  with  his 
savages  howled  and  war-whooped  in  their  rear. 

The  patriots  were  also  up  in  arms  in  all  the  country  about  Fort 
Stanwix,  and  were  prepared  to  help  the  little  garrison  inside. 
Colonel  Gansevoort  held  the  fort,  with  seven  hundred  and  fifty 


BURGOYNE’S  CAMPAIGN. 


235 


men,  and  General  Herkimer  had  raised  a  company  of  about  eight 
hundred  militia  to  aid  in  defending  it  outside  the  walls.  The 
Indians,  skillful  in  that  kind  of  warfare,  united  with  the  Tories  and 
British  in  a  close  ambuscade,  from  which  they  fell  suddenly  on  Gen¬ 
eral  Herkimer  as  he  approached  the  fort.  There  was  a  bloody  fight, 
in  which  Herkimer,  brave  old  fellow,  fought  like  a  tiger.  He  was 
shot  in  both  legs,  mortally  wounded,  but,  like  brave  Witherington 
in  “  Chevy  Chase,”  who,  — 

“  When  his  legs  were  cut  in  two 
He  fought  upon  his  stumps,” 

so  Herkimer,  sitting  down  on  a  log,  waved  his  men  on  to  battle,  and 
holding  a  rifle,  fired  as  long  as  his  hand  could  pull  a  trigger.  It 
ended  in  triumph  for  the  Americans,  —  a  dearly  bought  triumph, 
for  they  left  more  than  half  their  men  on  the  field,  scalped  and 
mutilated  by  the  savages  in  St.  Leger’s  army. 

The  deeds  of  the  Indians,  and  their  employment  by  Burgoyne, 
fired  all  the  Americans  with  increased  indignation  and  resolve  not 
to  yield.  Every  day  there  was  a  new  story  told  of  Indian  barbarity. 
Even  the  British  could  not  securely  trust  their  savage  allies.  An 
officer  among  the  Tories  sent  a  party  of  Indians  to  escort  a  young 
girl  named  Jane  McCrea,  to  whom  he  was  engaged  in  marriage, 
within  the  British  lines.  On  the  way  the  Indians  fell  to  quarreling 
over  the  reward  they  were  to  receive,  and,  in  the  melee,  killed  the 
girl,  and  bore  her  scalp  away,  leaving  her  mutilated  body  in  the 
road.  This  outrage,  committed  almost  in  the  sight  of  her  neighbors 
and  friends,  filled  the  whole  country  with  horror,  and  General  Bur¬ 
goyne  was  called  upon  to  declare  that  it  was  a  horrible  mistake. 

Schuyler  worked  bravely  to  defend  the  Hudson,  filling  up  the 
river  with  all  the  means  he  could  devise,  in  order  to  render  it 
impassable  by  British  ships,  and  obstructing  Burgoyne’s  marches 
wherever  he  could  do  so  with  safety.  Still  there  had  been  much 
grumbling  against  him  ever  since  the  fall  of  Ticonderoga.  Rein¬ 
forcements  had  poured  in  rapidly  at  Fort  Edward,  and  he  now  had 
a  large  army  there.  After  the  battle  at  Fort  Stanwix,  Gansevoort 
sent  messengers  begging  reinforcements.  When  Schuyler  talked  of 
sending  them,  there  were  murmurs  all  around  him  of  discontent. 
“He  wants  to  deplete  the  army.”  The  general  was  smoking  at 
the  time,  and  he  was  so  angry  that  he  bit  the  stem  of  his  clay 
pipe  to  pieces  in  his  mouth,  in  the  effort  to  restrain  his  temper.  “  I 


236  STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 

take  all  responsibility  upon  myself,  gentlemen,”  said  he.  “  Who 

will  volunteer  to  command 
the  relief  to  Stanwix.  I 
shall  send  it  to-morrow.''1 
On  this,  Benedict  Arnold 
started  to  his  feet,  and  vol¬ 
unteered  to  command. 

Arnold  was  as  crafty  as 
he  was  brave.  When  he 
was  nearing  the  British 
under  St.  Leger,  he  sent  a 
man  on  ahead  with  several 
bullet  holes  in  his  clothes, 
who  entered  the  enemy’s 
camp  as  a  deserter,  and 
gave  such  an  account  of 
the  great  army  coming  on, 
that  St.  Leger  was  fright¬ 
ened,  and  the  Indians, 
who  had  begun  to  show 
signs  of  flagging  bravery 
ever  since  the  fight  with 
Herkimer,  nearly  all  took 
to  their  heels. 

The  British  army  began 
a  rapid  retreat.  Arnold  went  on  unmolested,  left  his  reinforcements 
at  Stanwix,  and  returned  to  Schuyler,  after  taking  a  quantity  of 
tents  and  baggage  that  St.  Leger  had  left  in  his  flight. 

While  Arnold  was  gone,  Schuyler  had  moved  his  army  from  Fort 
Edward  and  taken  up  a  position  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Hudson, 
near  the  village  of  Stillwater.  Burgoyne  was  trying  all  this  time 
to  bring  stores  and  provisions  for  his  army  down  to  the  river  from 
Lake  George.  After  working  fifteen  days  he  found  he  had  only 
succeeded  in  bringing  provisions  for  four  days  eighteen  miles,  so 
effectually  had  General  Schuyler  blocked  up  roads  and  impeded  his 
progress.  To  rest  a  little  from  his  labors  and  see  if  he  could  not 
draw  some  aid  from  the  enemy’s  country,  Burgoyne  sent  out  a  de¬ 
tachment  of  his  Germans  under  General  Baum,  to  take  some  Ameri¬ 
can  stores  at  Bennington.  The  Germans  marched  on  to  Benning¬ 
ton,  where  General  John  Stark  had  just  arrived  with  a  company  of 
his  New  Hampshire  militia. 


BURGOYNE’S  CAMPAIGN. 


237 


When  Stark  saw  them  coming  he  made  a  short  speech  to  his  sol¬ 
diers,  which  was  as  good  as  volumes  of  words.  “  There  they  are, 
boys,”  he  shouted,  pointing  to  the  British.  “We  shall  beat  them 
to-night,  or  to-morrow  morning  Molly  Stark  will  be  a  widow.” 

They  did  beat  them  and  drove  them  back  toward  the  Hudson. 
On  their  retreat  the  British  met  a  new  supply  of  their  troops  under 
General  Breyman,  and  turned  back  to  renew  the  battle.  Fortu¬ 
nately  for  the  Americans,  Seth  Warner  and  his  “  Green  Mountain 
Boys  ”  had  joined  Stark  by  this  time,  and  they  sent  the  redcoats 
back  again.  In  the  battle  the  men  took  several  brass  cannon. 
They  did  not  know  how  to  load  cannon,  and  could  not  use  them  till 
Stark  rode  up  and  showed  them  how.  For  men  who  did  not  know 
enough  of  arms  to  load  a  cannon  properly,  I  think  they  fought  the 
battle  of  Bennington  very  satisfactorily.  At  all  events,  the  retreat 
of  St.  Leger  from  Stanwix,  and  the  defeat  of  Baum  at  Bennington, 
was  a  great  aid  to  the  American  cause. 

Just  at  this  time  Schuyler  was  superseded  in  command  by  General 
Horatio  Gates.  It  was  a  severe  blow  to  Schuyler  after  all  his  plans 
were  laid  for  the  campaign,  but  he  gave  up  with  much  grace,  and 
cheerfully  did  all  in  his  power  to  help  the  cause  of  the  country  in 
the  region  of  his  former  command. 

About  the  middle  of  September  the  two  armies  of  the  North  were 
very  near  each  other,  waiting  to  give  battle.  Burgoyne  was  on  the 
heights  of  Saratoga,  Gates  was  on  some 
heights  just  back  of  an  old  tavern  known  as 
“  Bemis’s  Inn,”  and  held  a  strongly  fortified 
place  there  overlooking  a  flat  country,  and 
commanding  the  road  up  and  down  the  river. 

On  the  19th  of  September  both  armies  came 
outside  their  lines,  and  met  in  a  bloody  battle 
near  the  village  of  Stillwater,  which  lasted 
several  hours  without  any  marked  result  on 
either  side.  Again  the  armies  retired  inside 
their  lines  and  awaited  battle  till  the  7th  of  October.  On  that  day 
they  met  again  in  almost  the  same  place  as  before.  It  was  about 
three  o’clock  in  the  afternoon  when  the  battle  began,  and  they 
fought  until  darkness  put  an  end  to  the  affray.  General  Frazer, 
Burgoyne’s  favorite  general,  was  shot  through  the  body  and  carried 
dying  off  the  field.  General  Breyman  was  slain,  and  several  other 
British  officers  were  fatally  wounded.  General  Benedict  Arnold, 


238 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


who  since  his  return  from  Fort  Stanwix  had  quarreled  with  Gates, 
was  wounded  in  one  leg.  General  Gates  had  given  him  no  special 
command,  which  had  added  to  Arnold’s  anger,  and  all  day  long  he 
fought  like  a  madman,  rushing  in  wherever  the  fight  was  thickest, 
and  seizing  a  loaded  rifle  from  any  private  soldier  who  was  near 
him,  that  he  might  deliberately  pick  off  one  of  the  foes.  It  was  an 
additional  source  of  complaint  to  Arnold  that  Gates  did  not  speak 
of  his  bravery  in  his  report  to  Congress  of  the  victory  which  was 
gained  that  day. 

General  Frazer  asked  that  he  might  be  buried  in  the  trenches 
where  he  had  been  shot ;  and  the  day  after  the  battle  the  chaplain  of 
Burgoyne’s  army  read  the  service  for  the  dead  over  the  body  of  the 
general  as  it  was  lowered  into  the  trenches  from  which  he  had  rid¬ 
den  to  his  death.  General  Gates  saw  the  enemy  in  their  intrench- 
ments,  and  unaware  that  they  were  burying  the  dead,  he  kept  up  a 
constant  fire  from  the  cannon.  General  Frazer  was  buried,  as  he 
had  lived  and  died,  amid  the  roar  of  artillery. 

This  battle  had  broken  Burgoyne’s  strength.  The  Americans 
were  in  large  force,  and  flushed  with  victory.  The  British  were 
discouraged,  and  anxious  to  give  up.  The  two  generals  began 
to  correspond  on  the  terms  of  surrender,  and  it  was  finally  agreed 
that  Burgoyne's  army  should  lay  down  their  arms  and  march  to 
Boston,  to  be  sent  from  that  city  to  Europe  under  a  promise  to 
fight  no  more  in  this  war. 

On  the  17th  of  October  Burgoyne’s  army  marched  silently  out  of 
their  camp  and  stacked  their  guns  on  the  fields  of  Saratoga.  The 
American  army  were  nowhere  in  sight.  Their  general  had  generously 
forbidden  them  to  look  on  the  humiliation  of  their  beaten  enemies. 

When  Burgoyne  and  Gates  met  after  the  surrender,  the  British 
general  drew  his  sword  and  handed  it  politely  to  Gates,  while  with 
the  other  hand  he  gracefully  lifted  his  hat,  saying,  “  The  fortunes  of 
war,  general,  have  made  me  your  prisoner.” 

“  I  shall  always  be  glad  to  testify  that  it  was  through  no  fault  of 
your  excellency,”  answered  General  Gates  with  equal  politeness,  and 
after  this  exchange  of  civilities  the  two  gentlemen  went  off  to  dine 
together. 

So  ended  Burgoyne’s  campaign.  He  was  much  blamed  in  Eng¬ 
land,  poor  man,  and  sought  solace  in  writing  more  comedies,  but  he 
always  afterwards  opposed  the  war  against  America. 

You  must  fancy  the  great  joy  in  this  country  at  this  surrender. 


THE  YEAR  1778. 


239 


Sir  Henry  Clinton,  who  had  got  np  the  Hudson  as  far  as  Haverstraw, 
and  taken  two  forts  there,  retreated  to  New  York.  The  Hudson 
River  was  ours,  and  in  spite  of  the  gloom  around  him,  the  heart  of 
Washington  was  cheered  by  the  glorious  nows  from  the  North. 


CHAPTER  XLIY. 

THE  YEAR  1778. 

Gayeties  in  Philadelphia. —  The  Terrible  Winter  at  Valley  Forge.  —  Story  of  Washington  and  the 
Farmer. — Molly  Pitcher  at  Monmouth.  —  Philadelphia  ours  once  more. — The  Wyoming 
Massacre.  —  Tories  and  Indians.  —  Atrocities  of  the  Wyoming  Attack.  —  End  of  the  Year. 

In  the  winter  of  1777-78  the  armies  of  America  and  Great 
Britain  lay  only  twenty  miles  apart.  The  army  of  redcoats  with 
their  commander-in-chief,  General  Howe,  were  quartered  in  the  city 
of  Philadelphia,  the  pleasantest  city  in  America.  There  they  lived 
in  fine  houses,  ministered  to  by  the  Tory  citizens,  who  hoped  to  see 
the  British  arms  successful,  and  did  all  in  their  power  to  make  the 
city  agreeable  for  its  officers  and  men.  There  were  balls,  dinner 
parties,  and  all  sorts  of  festivities.  Once  they  held  a  grand  tourna¬ 
ment,  in  which  the  officers  wore  the  favorite  colors  of  fair  ladies  on 
their  shields,  and  the  ladies  crowned  their  favorite  knights  with 
garlands.  The  array  of  beauty  and  gorgeous  dresses  seen  at  this 
mock  tournament  rivaled  the  old  days  of  knighthood  and  chivalry. 
So  from  the  city,  all  winter  long,  rose  the  sounds  of  feasting  and 
merry-making,  and  there,  in  inglorious  ease,  reposed  the  British 
commander  and  his  men. 

Twenty  miles  away,  in  a  rocky,  desolate,  mountain  gorge  known 
as  Valley  Forge,  Washington  had  led  his  army  from  White  Marsh. 
When  he  went  there,  in  bitter  December  weather,  his  men,  shoeless 
and  almost  naked,  had  marked  their  way  with  blood  from  their  bare 
feet.  They  reached  the  valley,  and  for  want  of  tents  were  obliged 
to  cut  down  trees  and  build  huts  of  logs  for  shelter  from  the  cold. 
Congress  had  no  money  to  pay  the  men,  no  money  to  buy  them 
food.  For  days  and  days  together,  during  this  winter,  they  had  no 
bread  and  lived  upon  salt  pork  alone.  They  sickened  with  hunger 
and  cold,  and  there  was  no  money  to  buy  medicines,  no  comfortable 
hospitals  where  they  could  be  nursed.  They  were  ragged  and 
without  shoes.  Some  comrades  had  but  one  suit  of  clothes  between 

them,  and  while  one  went  out  to  parade,  the  other  would  lie  shiver- 

16 


240 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


ing  with  a  single  blanket  wrapped  about  him.  Ah,  my  children, 
liberty  was  dearly  bought  in  this  country.  It  cost  many  lives  that 
winter,  and  left  many  homes  desolate  and  mourning.  We  should 
never  forget  the  men  who  died  there  at  Valley  Forge. 

These  were  hard  days  for  Washington,  too,  and  his  heart  must 
often  have  felt  very  heavy.  He  knew  there  were  many  who  mur¬ 
mured  against  him  because  he  had  not  been  more  successful  and 
won  more  brilliant  victories.  He  saw  his  men  naked,  starving, 
freezing  with  cold,  and  burning  with  malarious  fevers.  Once  the 
rude  Pennsylvania  farmer  with  whom  he  lodged,  went  to  his  door 
to  speak  with  the  commander-in-chief.  He  heard  his  voice  in 
earnest  entreaty,  and  stopped  to  listen.  Washington  was  alone, 
praying  to  God  for  succor  for  his  poor  soldiers,  and  the  success  of 
American  liberties.  The  farmer  stole  softly  away  and  went  down¬ 
stairs  to  his  wife.  “  If  God  ever  hears  any  prayers,”  he  said,  while 
lie  wiped  away  the  tears  which  were  rolling  down  his  cheeks,  “  he 
will  hear  George  Washington.” 

The  long  winter,  a  bitterly  cold  winter,  at  last  passed  away. 
New  England  sent  money  and  provisions  for  their  relief,  and  with 
the  first  breath  of  spring  came  cheering  news.  France  acknowl¬ 
edged  the  United  States  as  a  nation,  and  had  given  notice  to  Eng¬ 
land  of  her  intention  to  treat  her  as  such.  For  almost  two  years, 
Benjamin  Franklin,  Silas  Deane,  and  Arthur  Lee,  had  been  in 
France,  trying  to  get  the  king  to  lend  a  helping  hand  in  America. 
The  news  of  Burgoyne’s  surrender  had  decided  France,  and  tidings 
came  to  Congress  that  ships  and  soldiers  and  money  would  soon 
reach  the  struggling  colonies.  There  was  universal  gladness,  and  a 
bond  of  friendship  was  knit  between  France  and  this  country  which 
has  never  been  broken  from  that  day  to  this. 

Howe’s  stay  in  Philadelphia  did  not  end  quite  so  pleasantly  for 
him.  Benjamin  Franklin  said  shrewdly,  “  Howe  has  not  taken 
Philadelphia  ;  Philadelphia  has  taken  him.”  He  had  so  indolent 
a  time  there  that  the  British  government  began  to  mistrust  his 
desire  to  do  anything  but  dance  and  eat  good  dinners,  and  sent  Sir 
Henry  Clinton  to  take  his  command  away  from  him.  In  June  the 
whole  army  moved  out  of  Philadelphia,  and  then  Washington, 
whose  men  were  now  clothed  and  comfortable,  broke  up  his  camp, 
and  went  to  give  them  battle. 

The  two  armies  met  at  Monmouth,  and  fought  from  sunrise  to 
sunset,  a  ghastly,  bloody  fight.  It  was  the  hottest  day  in  the  year, 


THE  YEAR  1778. 


241 


and  men  were  constantly  dropping  down  in  the  ranks  from  sun¬ 
stroke.  During  the  battle,  one  of  the  gunners,  a  man  named 
Pitcher,  was  shot  at  his  gun.  His  wife,  who  had  followed  him 
from  their  home  to  the  camp,  and  from  camp  to  the  battle-field, 
stepped  forward  and  took  his  place,  firing  the  cannon  with  the  skill 
and  rapidity  of  a  soldier.  She  was  always  called  after  that,  “  Cap¬ 
tain  Molly  Pitcher.” 

When  night  came,  the  Americans  lay  down  in  their  clothes  upon 
the  field,  with  guns  in  hand,  ready  to  begin  again  next  morning. 
But  at  daybreak  the  British  had  fled  and  were  on  their  way  to  New 
York  city.  Washington  followed  to  White  Plains,  and  set  up  his 
tents  there  on  the  very  spot  from  which  he  had  been  driven  two 
years  before. 

So  Philadelphia  was  ours  once  more.  Washington  left  General 
Benedict  Arnold  there  to  hold  the  city,  because  his  wounded  leg 
still  troubled  him,  and  he  was  not  fit  for  active  service.  Arnold 
was  very  angry  that  his  valor  had  not  been  more  fully  recognized, 
and  very  bitter  against  General  Gates,  who,  he  said,  had  wronged 
him  at  Saratoga.  But  Washington  seems  to  have  prized  his  ser¬ 
vices.  I  am  very  sorry  that  he  gave  him  the  command  at  Phila¬ 
delphia,  however.  Because  he  got  acquainted  with  many  wealthy 
Tories  there,  and  married  very  soon,  a  beautiful,  accomplished  Tory 
girl,  who  had  been  one  of  the  belles  in  the  festivities  which  General 
Howe  kept  up  in  Philadelphia.  General  Arnold  would  better  have 
married  a  poor,  plain,  uneducated,  loyal-hearted  girl  in  his  own 
native  Rhode  Island,  than  this  handsome  Tory,  who  wrote  gay  and 
delightful  letters  to  several  British  officers  in  Howe’s  army. 

In  July  Count  D’Estaing  came  from  France  with  twelve  ships, 
ammunition,  men,  and  money.  England  be¬ 
gan  to  be  anxious.  She  was  ready  to  repeal 
her  tax  laws  now,  if  her  children  would  return 
to  their  allegiance.  But  they  had  already 
tasted  freedom  ;  they  would  listen  to  no  offers. 

Some  British  commissaries  tried  to  bribe  loyal 
Americans  to  betray  their  country.  But  as 
one  of  them  (General  Reed  of  Philadelphia) 
said,  “I  am  not  worth  buying,  but  such  as  I  Count  D'Estaing. 
am,  the  King  of  England  is  not  rich  enough  to  do  it.”  So  all  the 
patriots  felt  at  heart. 

The  saddest  event  of  this  year  was  known  as  “  The  Wyoming 


242 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


Massacre,”  a  story  which  has  been  told  since  in  many  a  poet’s 
verse.1 

The  Wyoming  Valley  was  a  strip  of  green  meadow  land,  border¬ 
ing  the  Susquehanna  River,  inclosed  on  all  sides  by  steep  and 
rugged  mountains.  Here  many  Connecticut  families  had  settled, 
and  their  pleasant  farms  and  comfortable  farm-houses  formed  a 
peaceful  little  Arcadia.  The  Wyoming  settlers  were  very  loyal, 
and  nearly  every  family  had  a  husband  or  son  in  the  patriot  army. 
But  the  country  about  swarmed  with  Tories,  and  there  was  the 
bitterest  ill-feeling  between  the  Tories  and  patriots  there. 

One  summer  evening  (June,  1778),  about  eleven  hundred  men, 
six  hundred  of  whom  were  Indians,  swept  down  upon  the  lovely 
valley.  The  frightened  people,  largely  women  and  children,  hud¬ 
dled  together  in  Fort  Forty,  the  safest  stronghold  in  the  event  of  a 
siege.  Fortunately,  a  brave  soldier  in  the  Continental  army,  Colo¬ 
nel  Zebulon  Butler,  one  of  the  Connecticut  settlers,  was  at  home  in 
the  valley  on  a  furlough.  To  him  the  command  of  the  little  army 
of  defense  was  given.  He  mustered  a  small  band,  principally  old 
men  and  boys,  numbering  in  all,  hardly  more  than  one  fifth  of  the 
enemy.  It  was  decided  that  their  only  hope  was  in  meeting  their 
foes  upon  the  open  field,  and  accordingly  they  left  the  walls  of  the 
fort  and  what  poor  protection  they  afforded,  and  went  bravely  out 
to  await  the  fate  of  battle.  The  Tories  and  Indians  were  com¬ 
manded  by  Colonel  John  Butler  of  the  “  Johnson  Greens,”  who 
had  fought  at  Fort  Stanwix  when  Herkimer  was  killed.  They 
were  a  savage  band  ;  the  Tories  nearly  all  native  Americans,  and 
hardly  less  bloodthirsty  than  their  Indian  allies.  The  patriots  made 
a  brave  but  hopeless  defense.  When  at  last  overpowered  by  such 
numbers,  they  gave  way,  they  were  pursued  with  horrible  fury,  and 
the  conquerors  showed  no  mercy.  Many  tried  to  escape  by  swim¬ 
ming  the  river,  or  hiding  in  the  branches  of  the  trees  which  over¬ 
hung  the  water,  but  the  Indians  pursued  with  their  wild  war-whoops, 
and  hacked  them  to  pieces  with  knives  and  tomahawks.  Every 
painted  warrior  bore  scalps  at  his  girdle,  torn  from  the  heads  of  old 
men,  women,  and  children.  Some  of  the  captives  were  roasted  in 
slow  fires,  some  had  their  brains  dashed  out  with  clubs.  In  the 
flesh  of  some  they  stuck  splinters  of  pine,  and  then  set  them  on  fire. 
Others  they  threw  into  the  flames  and  held  them  there  with  pitchforks 

1  The  English  poet  Campbell  celebrates  this  massacre  in  his  famous  poem,  Gertrude  of 
Wyoming. 


SAVANNAH  AND  STONY  POINT. 


243 


till  they  were  consumed.  Friend  murdered  his  friend,  and  brother 
slaughtered  brother,  in  this  hideous  affray.  Glutted  with  blood,  the 
conquerors  came  to  demand  the  surrender  of  Fort  Forty,  which  was 
given  up  to  them  without  resistance.  The  miserable  little  handful 
of  women  and  children,  widows  and  orphans  of  those  they  had  just 
destroyed,  left  the  fort,  and  wandered  out  without  food,  almost  with¬ 
out  clothing,  into  the  Avilderness.  A  part  of  them  made  their  Avay 
to  some  distant  settlements,  but  many  perished  on  the  road  from 
hunger  and  exhaustion.  Their  track  through  the  wilderness  is 
known  to  this  day  as  “  The  Shades  of  Death.” 

After  this  conquest,  the  cruel  hordes  of  Butler  devastated  the 
whole  region  of  western  Pennsylvania,  and  all  summer  tales  of 
their  brutality  startled  the  whole  land. 

The  rest  of  the  year  1778  Avas  not  marked  by  any  notable  event. 
Washington  remained  that  fall  and  winter  in  NeAV  Jersey.  Count 
D'Estaing,  with  his  French  fleet,  Avent  to  the  British  islands  in  the 
West  Indies,  to  worry  the  enemy  there.  Sir  Henry  Clinton  sent  a 
large  force  to  Georgia,  the  youngest  and  weakest  of  all  the  colonies, 
and  they  took  the  town  of  Savannah,  and  held  it  till  the  war  ended. 


CHAPTER  XLV. 

SAVANNAH  AND  STONY  POINT. 

Continental  Money.  —  Lincoln  and  Count  D’Estaing  at  Savannah. — Defeat  to  the  Ameri¬ 
cans.  —  Mad  Anthony  Wayne.  —  The  Forlorn  Hope.  —  Taking  of  Stony  Point. 

One  of  the  greatest  troubles  which  beset  the  American  Congress 
in  carrying  on  this  revolutionary  war,  Avas  the  want  of  money.  This 
pressing  need  forced  them  to  issue  paper  money  to  supply  the  place 
of  the  gold  and  silver  which  was  lacking,  and  as  paper  money  is 
not  worth  anything  unless  people  are  sure  there  is  enough  gold  and 
silver  someAvhere  to  take  its  place,  this  American  or  Continental 
money  was  worth  less  and  less,  as  Congress  greAV  poorer  and  poorer, 
till  finally  forty  dollars  of  it  was  hardly  worth  one  dollar  in  gold. 
In  South  Carolina,  it  was  said,  it  took  seven  hundred  dollars  to  buy 
a  pair  of  shoes.  The  soldiers  were  paid  Avith  this  money,  and  their 
pay  would  not  keep  their  families  in  salt.  By  the  way,  salt  was  very 
dear,  and  became  as  much  of  a  luxury  as  tea  or  sugar.  So  you  can 
see  the  worthlessness  of  the  “  Continental  money,”  as  it  was  called, 
caused  much  grumbling  and  discontent. 


244 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


I  told  you,  in  the  last  chapter,  that  the  British  had  concentrated  a 
large  force  in  Georgia.  Colonel  Campbell  and  General  Prevost 
were  the  British  commanders  there,  and  General  Lincoln  of  Massa¬ 
chusetts  commanded  our  Southern  army.  There  was  constant  man¬ 
oeuvring  on  the  part  of  the  British  to  hold  Georgia  and  the  Carolinas, 
and  on  the  part  of  Lincoln  to  drive  them  out.  They  tried  to  take 
Charleston  once,  but  Lincoln’s  troops  made  a  gallant  resistance, 
aided  by  brave  General  Moultrie,  who  had  been  at  the  first  siege  of 
Charleston,  and  was  there  to  help  them.  So  the  redcoats  did  not 
get  Charleston,  but  retired  to  Savannah  again.  At  length,  Count 
D’Estaing  came  up  from  the  West  Indies  and  joined  Lincoln,  and 
they  decided  to  lay  siege  to  Savannah. 

You  know  something  about  a  siege,  I  presume,  and  I  have  no 
doubt  you  have  read  about  the  siege  of  Troy,  which  lasted  ten  years, 
and  ended  by  getting  a  great  wooden  horse,  filled  with  soldiers, 
inside  the  Trojan  walls.  This  siege  of  Savannah  lasted  nearly  a 
month.  The  French  and  the  Americans  were  posted  on  all  sides  of 
the  city,  and  kept  perpetually  firing  inside  the  fortifications  which 
surrounded  it.  Inside  the  town,  the  people  had  to  hide  in  cellars, 
and  throw  up  banks  of  sand  round  their  houses  to  keep  out  of  the 
way  of  bomb-shell  and  cannon-shot.  After  a  number  of  days  of  this 
kind  of  warfare,  Lincoln  made  an  assault  on  the  town,  and  was 

beaten  back  with  terrible  slaughter  of  liis  men. 
The  brave  Count  PulasJci,  the  noble  Pole  who 
was  here  helping  in  our  battles,  lost  his  life 
in  this  fearful  assault  at  Savannah.  Sergeant 
Jasper,  the  one  who  saved  the  flag  at  Charles¬ 
ton  by  jumping  over  the  wall  after  it,  was  here 
killed.  He  died,  grasping  a  flag  which  had 
been  given  his  regiment  by  some  patriotic 
count  Puiaski.  women,  saying,  “Tell  the  ladies  of  Charleston 
I  preserved  their  flag  unharmed.  ’ 

This  fight  at  Savannah  ended  in  triumph  for  the  British  and 
was  the  last  attempt  of  the  Americans  for  the  present  to  recover 
Georgia. 

In  the  North,  Tryon  was  ravaging  Connecticut,  burning  towns, 
trampling  down  the  growing  harvests,  and  insulting  the  people  by 
all  kinds  of  brutality.  On  the  Hudson  River  General  Clinton  was 
harassing  Washington’s  army  which  had  spent  the  winter  in  New 
Jersey,  and  was  now  trying  to  guard  the  Hudson.  The  Americans 


THE  YEAR  1778. 


245 


had  built  some  very  good  forts  at  West  Point,  —  now  the  great 
military  school  of  our  nation.  But  the  British  had  two  fortified 
places  on  the  Hudson  —  Verplanck’s  Point  and  Stony  Point  — 
nearly  opposite  each  other  on  the  river. 

In  July  Washington  planned  the  taking  of  Stony  Point.  He 
selected  General  Anthony  Wayne,  whom  the  soldiers  called  “Mad 
Anthony  ”  because  he  was  so  recklessly  brave.  Wayne  went  up 
the  river  secretly  and  divided  his  army  into  two  columns,  to  attack 
eacli  side  of  the  fort  at  once.  Each  column  was  led  by  a  “  forlorn 
hope”  of  twenty  men.  Do  you  know  what  a  “forlorn  hope” 
means  ?  It  is  a  small  party  of  men  appointed  to  go  first  in  a  very 
dangerous  attack,  where  there  is  little  chance  that  any  will  be  left 
alive.  When  Wayne  called  for  volunteers  to  join  the  “forlorn 
hope  ”  to  lead  his  two  attacking  columns,  so  many  men  came  for¬ 
ward  to  go  that  it  was  difficult  to  choose  from  among  them. 

The  columns  came  in  upon  the  fort  from  south  and  north,  and  so 
quick  and  sudden  was  the  attack  that  the  fort  was  taken  in  hardly, 
less  time  than  it  takes  to  tell  it,  and  the  two  parts  of  W ayne’s  army 
met  almost  exactly  in  the  middle  of  the  fortress.  Of  one  “  forlorn 
hope  ”  only  five  men  remained,  and  the  other  was  almost  as  badly 
cut  to  pieces.  Yet  it  was  a  glorious  victory,  and  Wayne  took  many 
prisoners,  and  cannon,  powder,  flags,  and  other  trophies  of  war. 
Unfortunately  Washington  was  not  strong  enough  to  hold  the  fort, 
but  was  obliged  to  order  Wayne  to  take  away  his  spoils  and  desert 
the  Point. 

Away  in  the  west  General  Sullivan  was  paying  the  Indians  and 
Tories  in  their  own  coin  by  burning  the  towns  and  ravaging  the 
country  which  the  Indians  had  ravaged  before.  On  the  extreme 
western  border,  now  the  State  of  Indiana,  and  then  called  the 
“  country  of  the  Illinois,”  General  George  Rogers  Clarke  had  waded 
through  the  swamp  lands  and  crossed  the  rivers  to  hang  the  Ameri¬ 
can  flag  over  Fort  Vincennes,  built  years  before  by  the  French. 
The  war  was  spreading  out  in  wider  and  wider  circles,  and  the  end 
of  it  seemed  farther  and  farther  away. 


246 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


CHAPTER  XLYI. 


JOHN  PAUL  JONES. 


Privateers.  —  Daring  Adventure  of  John  Paul  Jones. — The  Bon  Homme  Richard. — Fight 
with  the  Serapis.  —  The  Ships  tied  together.  —  Victory. 


As  yet  you  have  heard  nothing  of  any  battles  on  the  sea.  It 
would  seem  almost  absurd  for  these  poor  colonies  to  meet  England 
in  her  own  domain  of  the  ocean,  —  England  who  had  so  long  claimed 

to  be  the  mistress  of  the 
seas.  Yet.  as  early  as 
1775  Congress  had  or¬ 
dered  a  small  fleet  to  be 
fitted  out  as  the  begin¬ 
ning  of  an  American 
navy,  and  had  appointed 
Esek  Hopkins  as  its  com¬ 
mander.  Up  to  the  fall 
of  1779,  however,  nearly 
all  the  naval  enterprises 
had  been  undertaken  by 
“  privateers,”  which  since 
the  beginning  of  the  war 
had  swarmed  in  Boston 
harbor  and  the  neighbor¬ 
ing  sea-coasts.  These  pri¬ 
vateers  were  ships  fitted 
out  by  private  individ¬ 
uals,  who  obtained  a  com¬ 
mission  from  the  govern¬ 
ment  to  capture  any  of 
the  enemy’s  ships  which 
they  were  strong  enough  to  take.  There  were  a  good  many  Amer¬ 
ican  privateers  fitted  out  which  had  done  more  or  less  service,  though 
the  British  declared  they  were  piratical  craft  and  their  captains  and 
men  were  no  better  than  pirates. 

One  of  the  commanders  of  the  vessels  in  this  weak  and  puny 
American  navy  was  Captain  John  Paul  Jones.  Jones  was  a  native 
of  England,  but  he  had  lived  for  years  in  Virginia,  owned  an  estate 
there,  and  was  an  American  in  heart  and  soul.  He  was  as  daring 


Engagement  of  the  Bon  Homme  Richard  with  the  Serapis. 


•: 


iH 

« 

: 


: 


I  I  d 

. 


I  -  ■  ' 

■ 

■ 

.  . '  :  i  *.  ‘  * 

. 


' 


JOHN  PAUL  JONES. 


249 


as  any  hero  of  romance,  and  his  adventures  are  as  various  and  as 
strange  as  those  of  Roderick  Random  or  Masterman  Ready.  He 
had  actually  sailed  over  to  the  enemy’s  country,  landed  on  the  coast 
of  England  at  Whitehaven,  spiked  all  the  cannon  in  the  fort  while 
the  town  was  asleep,  and  then  set  fire  to  the  ships  in  the  harbor, 
and  gone  quietly  on  board  his  vessel,  before  the  terrified  inhabitants 
could  rub  open  their  sleepy  eyes  and  see  that  it  was  only  one  poor 
little  vessel  with  a  handful  of  men,  who  had  done  all  this.  After 
this  adventure,  he  went  to  France,  and  with  Benjamin  Franklin’s 
aid  and  influence  finally  got  a  good-sized  ship,  which  he  called  the 
Bon  Homme  Richard  (Good  Man  Richard),  after  Dr.  Franklin’s 
“  Poor  Richard’s  Maxims,”  which  I  am  sure  you  have  often  heard 
quoted. 

John  Paul  sailed  with  “Good  Man  Richard”  to  the  coast  of  Eng¬ 
land  bordering  on  the  North  Sea.  Cruising  about  near  the  harbor 
of  Scarborough  in  Yorkshire  County,  he  saw  a  fleet  of  ships  just 
setting  to  sea  under  the  protection  of  two  English  men-of-war.  The 
largest  of  these  ships  was  the  Serapis ,  with  forty-four  guns,  splen¬ 
didly  manned  and  every  way  the  better  of  John  Paul’s  ship.  He 
did  not  hesitate  on  that  account,  but  challenged  her  at  once  to  battle. 
The  English  captain  was  so  certain  of  victory  that  when  he  had 
fired  one  or  two  broadsides  at  “  Good  Man  Richard,”  he  inquired  of 
her  commander  if  he  was  ready  to  pull  down  his  colors.  “  I  have 
not  yet  begun  to  fight,”  answered  John  Paul  coolly. 

The  two  ships  were  then  so  close  together  that  the  bowsprit  of 
the  Serapis  came  over  the  side  so  that  it  nearly  touched  the  miz- 
zen-mast  of  the  Bon  Homme  Richard.  John  Paul  saw  his  oppor¬ 
tunity,  and  before  the  captain  could  disentangle  the  two  ships 
he  seized  a  rope  and  with  his  own  hands  tied  the  ships  together. 
There,  lashed  side  by  side,  with  the  mouths  of  the  cannon  from  each 
vessel  belching  into  each  other  their  terrible  volley,  ensued  one  of 
the  most  desperate  fights  in  the  history  of  sea  battles.  It  lasted 
about  two  hours  and  a  half,  when  the  English  captain  went  aloft  and 
hauled  down  his  colors  with  his  own  hand.  Not  one  of  his  men 
was  brave  enough  to  venture  on  deck  on  such  an  errand.  When 
the  fight  was  over,  John  Paul’s  vessel  was  sinking,  and  her  master 
and  his  crew  were  obliged  to  leave  her  and  take  refuge  in  the  con¬ 
quered  ship.  “Next  day,”  says  John  Paul  in  his  account  of  it,  “I 
saw  it  was  impossible  to  save  the  good  old  ship  from  sinking.  We 
did  not  abandon  her  till  nine  in  the  morning.  The  water  was  then 


250 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


up  to  the  lower  deck,  and  a  little  after  ten  I  saw,  with  inexpressi¬ 
ble  grief,  the  last  glimpse  of  the  Bon  Homme  Richard.  " 

The  fight  with  the  Serapis  filled  all  Europe  with  surprise,  and 
John  Paul  Jones  was  the  hero  of  the  hour.  The  fact  that  an  Eng¬ 
lish  ship  could  be  beaten  in  fair  battle  was  proved,  and  was  hailed 
as  a  good  omen  in  America.  Of  all  the  events  of  the  year  1779  it 
was  the  most  brilliant,  and  excited  most  wonder. 


CHAPTER  XLVII. 

EVENTS  DURING  1779. 

Discontent  in  the  Army. — Flogging  of  Soldiers. — Taking  of  Charleston  by  the  British. — 
Tarlton’s  Quarter.  —  General  Marion’s  Militia.  —  Story  of  Marion  and  the  British  Officer. — 
Count  Rochambeau  in  Rhode  Island. 

Another  winter  of  cold  and  discontent  in  Washington’s  army 
stationed  at  Morristown.  The  winter  was  terribly  severe,  and  in 
their  miserable  quarters  the  men  huddled  together  at  night  on 
piles  of  straw,  keeping  themselves  from  freezing  by  the  heat  from 
the  close  contact  of  their  bodies.  Heavy  snow-storms  often  cut  off 
their  supplies,  and  they  were  frequently  a  week  without  a  mouthful 
of  meat,  and  sometimes  as  long  without  bread.  The  soldiers,  paid 
in  Continental  money,  were  discontented  with  this  kind  of  reward  for 
their  services.  They  grumbled  loudly  at  having  nothing  but  this 
worthless  paper  to  send  home  to  their  families,  whom  they  knew 
were  often  without  the  common  necessaries  of  life.  When  their  pay 
was  given  them,  they  said,  as  they  looked  scornfully  at  the  crisp  new 
paper  which  the  Continental  Congress  had  issued,  “  A  hat  full  of 
this  oturf  would  not  buy  our  families  one  bushel  of  salt.” 

There  were  many  signs  of  mutiny,  and  only  the  utmost  care  and 
judicious  management  of  Washington  prevented  a  serious  outbreak 
in  his  army.  Many  of  the  soldiers,  contrary  to  orders,  would  steal 
from  camp  to  take  sheep,  pigs,  and  poultry,  from  the  farmers  in  the 
country  round  about.  Many  a  poor  fellow  had  to  he  flogged  for 
this  offense  (for  the  discipline  of  the  army  must  be  maintained),  and 
it  was  said  Washington  would  always  take  care  to  have  the  punish¬ 
ment  inflicted  as  far  as  possible  from  his  quarters,  that  he  might  not 
be  pained  by  witnessing  it.  The  soldiers  would  bear  the  whipping 
with  great  fortitude,  and  devised  a  means  to  endure  the  pain  with- 


EVENTS  DURING  1779. 


251 


out  uttering  any  outcry.  They  would  take  a  leaden  bullet  between 
the  teeth,  and  chew  on  it  while  the  lash  fell  on  their  naked  backs. 
After  the  punishment  was  over  they  would  often  spit  the  bullet 
from  their  mouths  all  flattened  out,  and  showing  as  plainly  the 
impression  of  the  teeth  as  if  it  had  been  rubber. 

Yet  although  the  soldiers  were  often  hungry  and  very  ragged,  the 
army  managed  to  turn  out  and  make  a  tolerable  appearance  when¬ 
ever  Washington  had  any  distinguished  foreign  guest,  and  a  “  dress 
review  ”  was  ordered.  Washington  had  very  efficient  help  at  this 
time  in  disciplining  the  army,  in  the  person  of  Baron  Steuben,  a 
splendid  soldier,  who  had  been  an  aide-de-camp  in  the  army  of  Fred¬ 
erick  the  Great  of  Prussia,  who  you  know  had  the  finest  soldiers  in 
the  world.  There  was  no  better  order  in  the  American  army  than 
in  the  regiments  which  Baron  Steuben  drilled.  Perfect  order  and 
perfect  silence  prevailed  in  the  parades  of  his  soldiers.  Every  man’s 
gun  was  examined,  and  if  it  was  dirty  or  out  of  order,  off  the  man 
went  to  the  guard-house.  If  clean,  and  ready  for  use  at  a  seconds 
notice,  the  soldier  had  a  reward  in  money  from  his  commander. 
There  were  few  among  those  foreign  officers  who  came  to  aid  us, 
more  efficient  than  Baron  Steuben. 

During  the  winter  General  Clinton,  who  still  held  New  York 
firmly  in  his  grasp,  and  who  felt  sure  Washington  was  not  in  a  con¬ 
dition  to  make  any  attempt  to  retake  the  city,  sailed  with  a  fleet  to 
Charleston,  South  Carolina,  to  take  that  town.  His  southern  army 
held  Savannah,  and  if  they  could  take  Charleston,  he  believed  that 
Georgia  and  the  Carolinas  would  be  entirely  subdued  to  British 
power.  General  Lincoln,  who  commanded  our  southern  troops,  was 
a  brave  man  and  a  good  soldier,  but  he  always  fought  with  the  odds 
against  him.  He  managed  to  muster  about  3,000  men  inside  the 
city  of  Charleston  for  its  defense,  and  he  hoped  to  get  more  forces 
before  Clinton  could  entirely  surround  the  city.  But  he  hoped  in 
vain.  The  British  ships  entered  Charleston  harbor  boldly,  and 
after  a  siege  of  a  month,  Lincoln  was  forced  to  surrender.  There 
were  many  Tories  in  South  Carolina  as  well  as  many  patriots,  and 
Clinton  took  counsel  of  the  Tories,  who  of  course  were  verv  bitter 
against  the  Whigs,  and  advised  him  to  issue  a  severe  proclamation, 
threatening  all  the  people  who  did  not  at  once  prove  themselves 
loyal  to  the  Bi’itish  king.  The  South  Carolina  militia  began  to  re¬ 
treat  to  the  mountains  of  North  Carolina,  to  get  out  of  the  way  of 
their  conquerors.  One  of  the  British  officers,  Colonel  Tarleton, 


252  STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 

was  sent  to  pursue  them,  and  falling  in  with  a  band  who  were  re¬ 
treating,  he  attacked  them  and  cut  them  to  pieces  without  mercy.  It 
was  reported  that  he  spurred  on  his  soldiers  after  the  militia  had  laid 
down  their  arms  and  asked  for  quarter,  —  and  “  Tarleton’s  quarter  ” 
afterwards  was  understood  to  mean  the  most  unrelenting  barbarity. 

After  the  taking  of  Charleston,  two  brave  soldiers  in  the  Carolinas 
carried  on  unceasing  war  against  the  Tories.  These  were  General 
Francis  Marion  and  General  Thomas  Sumter,  both  natives  of  South 
Carolina.  General  Marion  had  been  in  the  siege,  but  had  left  the 
city  just  before  it  surrendered  and  escaped  capture.  The  two  gen¬ 
erals  had  raised  an  army  of  men  from  among  the  patriot  farmers 
and  hunters  in  the  interior.  They  were  a  motley  crew,  without  uni¬ 
forms  and  almost  without  arms.  Yet  for  months  they  were  the  only 
representatives  of  the  American  cause  in  the  South,  and  by  ha¬ 
rassing  the  Tories,  making 
frequent  descents  on  Brit" 
ish  outposts,  and  capturing 
now  and  then  a  few  prison¬ 
ers  and  a  stand  of  arms,  they 
kept  liberty  alive.  At  one 
time  Marion  had  a  camp 
upon  Snow’s  Island,  an  in¬ 
accessible  spot,  in  the  cen¬ 
tre  of  swamps  and  tangled 
forests.  Here  with  his  men 
he  slept  on  the  ground  with¬ 
out  a  blanket,  and  marched 
bareheaded  in  the  sun,  for 
want  of  a  hat.  A  British 
officer  was  marched  into 
this  retreat,  blindfolded,  in 
order  to  talk  with  Marion 
about  the  exchange  of  some 
prisoners. 

Marion  invited  him  to 
dinner,  and  when  it  was 
reported  ready,  the  young 
officer,  fresh  from  the  lux¬ 
urious  fare  of  the  English 
mess-rooms,  saw  a  pine  log  for  a  table,  and  some  roasted  sweet 
potatoes  for  the  sole  dish. 


TREASON  OF  BENEDICT  ARNOLD. 


253 


“  Is  this  all  you  have  for  dinner  ?  ”  he  asked,  in  astonishment.1 
“  This  is  all,”  answered  General  Marion,  “  and  we  thought  ourselves 
fortunate  in  having  more  potatoes  than  usual,  when  we  had  a  guest 
to  dine  with  us.” 

“  You  must  have  excellent  pay  to  console  you  for  such  living,” 
said  the  officer. 

“  On  the  contrary,”  answered  Marion,  “  I  have  never  received 
a  dollar,  nor  have  one  of  my  men.” 

“  What  on  earth  are  you  fighting  for  ?  ” 

“For  the  love  of  liberty,”  answered  the  hero.  The  story  relates 
that  the  young  officer  went  back  to  Charleston  and  resigned  his 
position  in  the  English  army,  saying  he  would  not  fight  against 
men  who  fought  from  such  motives,  and  endured  such  hardships.  I 
hope  the  story  is  true,  it  is  such  an  excellent  one. 

In  the  mean  time,  at  the  North,  there  had  been  some  skirmish¬ 
ing,  and  many  houses  and  towns  plundered  in  New  York  and  New 
Jersey,  but  no  serious  fighting.  During  the  spring  Lafayette  re¬ 
turned  from  France  with  news  of  more  help  on  the  way  to  America. 
The  Count  de  Rochambeau  soon  followed  him  with  several  ships 
and  an  army  of  6,000  men.  They  took  up  quarters  in  Newport, 
Rhode  Island. 

In  September  Washington  went  to  Connecticut  to  confer  with  the 
Count,  and  while  here  a  treason  to  the  American  cause  was  discov¬ 
ered,  which  if  it  had  been  successful  might  have  been  the  death-blow 
to  liberty  in  this  country.  But  the  account  of  this  treason  must 
have  place  in  a  fresh  chapter. 


CHAPTER  XL VIII. 

TREASON  OF  BENEDICT  ARNOLD. 

West  Point.  — Gustavus,  and  John  Anderson.  — Capture  of  Colonel  Andre.  — Escape  of  Bene¬ 
dict  Arnold.  —  Andrd  condemned  to  be  hanged.  —  His  Letter  to  Washington.  —  Plot  to  save 
Andrd.  —  Feigned  Desertion  of  Champe.  —  The  Execution  of  Andre.  —  Failure  of  Champe’s 
Enterprise  and  his  Return. 

We  left  General  Benedict  Arnold  in  command  of  the  forces  sta¬ 
tioned  in  Philadelphia  after  Howe’s  evacuation.  He  had  lived  a 
gay  life  in  the  Quaker  city,  getting  badly  in  debt  there,  and  grow¬ 
ing  every  day  on  worse  terms  with  himself  and  his  brother  generals 
in  the  American  army.  In  the  summer  he  asked  Washington  for  a 


254 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


more  active  command,  and  Washington  gave  him  West  Point  for 

his  post  of  duty. 

West  Point  was  the 
most  important  post 
in  our  possession.  It 
was  the  stronghold 
which  guarded  the 
Hudson,  and  kept  the 
British  from  their 
darling  project  of  cut¬ 
ting  off  New  York 
from  New  England. 
Therefore  in  sending 
Arnold  to  command 
there,  Wash  i ngton 
gave  him  a  great  trust 
to  hold. 


But  Arnold  was  a 
bad-hearted  man,  ca¬ 
pable  of  betraying 
trust.  He  had  at  that 
very  time  planned  to 
sell  himself  to  the  Brit¬ 
ish,  and  had  named  the  price  at  which  he  could  be  bought.  He 
asked  XI  0,000  in  English  gold,  and  a  commission  in  the  royal 
army,  and  Sir  Henry  Clinton  had  offered  to  pay  it  to  him. 

I  have  told  you  Arnold’s  wife  was  a  Tory,  who  was  living  in  Phil¬ 
adelphia  when  Howe  was  there.  It  is  said  that  she  wrote  letters  at 
intervals  to  her  acquaintances  in  the  British  army,  among  whom  was 
young  Major  Andre,  an  adjutant-general  of  General  Clinton.  It 
may  have  been  in  this  way  that  Arnold  first  came  into  correspond¬ 
ence  with  Major  Andre.  At  any  rate,  for  some  time  they  ex¬ 
changed  letters,  which  were  signed  “  Gustavus  ”  by  Arnold,  and 
“John  Anderson  ”  by  Andre. 

In  September  General  Clinton  sent  Major  Andre  to  West  Point 
to  visit  Arnold,  and  arrange  definitely  for  the  betrayal  of  that 
post  into  his  hands.  Andre  went  up  in  a  British  vessel  named  the 
Vulture ,  and  was  carried  on  shore  in  a  boat  to  a  house  inside  the 
American  lines.  There  Arnold  met  him,  and  the  matter  was  fully 
discussed.  The  next  day  when  Andre  wished  to  rejoin  his  vessel 


TREASON  OF  BENEDICT  ARNOLD.  255 


he  found  it  had  gone  down  the  river.  Some  patriots  had  seen  it 
there,  and  suspecting  it  to  be  an  English 
vessel,  they  had  dragged  an  old  cannon  to 
the  river  bank,  firing  directly  into  the  Vul¬ 
ture ,  till  they  had  obliged  the  captain  to 
hoist  anchor  and  sail  toward  New  York. 

Andre  was  forced  to  cross  the  river  and 
go  by  horse  to  New  York  city.  Arnold 
gave  him  a  pass,  and  a  disguise  in  place 
of  his  uniform  as  an  English  officer,  and 
thus  provided,  he  crossed  the  river  just 
below  West  Point. 

He  had  passed  the  American  lines,  and 
had  reached  Tarrytown  on  the  Hudson.  Mai°r  Andre 


Before  night-fall  he  would  be  in  the  camp  at  New  York,  and  the 
plan  for  the  surrender  would  be  in  Clinton’s  hands.  Almost  free 
from  apprehension  of  danger,  he  rode  on.  Suddenly  three  men 
appeared  in  his  path.  Without  producing  his  pass,  he  asked  them, 
“  Where  do  you  belong.” 

“Down  below,”  answered  one.  “Down  below”  meant  New 
York,  and  Andre  was  thrown  off  his  guard  by  the  answer.  “  I 
belong  there  also,”  he  said.  “  I  am  a  British  officer  on  important 
business.  Do  not  detain  me.” 

“  Then  you  are  our  prisoner,”  answered  the  men. 

Andre  then  produced  his  pass,  but  as  by  his  own  confession  he 
was  a  British  officer,  it  availed  nothing.  He  offered  his  watch,  his 
purse,  and  more  valuable  than  either,  he  offered  to  deliver  to  them 
next  day  a  cargo  of  English  dry  goods  if  they  would  let  him  pass. 
They  were  unmoved  by  his  bribes,  and  already  had  begun  to  search 
him.  They  searched  pockets,  saddle-bags,  his  hat.  They  even 
ripped  open  the  linings  of  his  coat.  The  prisoner  stood  nearly  naked 
in  the  road,  yet  no  paper  had  been  found.  At  length  they  pulled 
off  his  boots.  His  boots  were  empty  ;  but  they  heard  the  rustle 
of  paper  when  they  were  drawn  off.  The  stockings  came  last, 
and  in  his  stockings,  under  the  soles  of  his  feet,  were  found,  in  Ar¬ 
nold’s  handwriting,  the  treasonable  papers,  with  a  plan  of  the  fort, 
mode  of  entrance,  and  everything  to  facilitate  its  surrender  to 
Clinton. 

The  three  men  (their  names  were  John  Paulding,  David  Will¬ 
iams,  and  Isaac  Van  Wert)  took  their  prisoner  and  the  papers  to 

17 


256 


STOKY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


the  nearest  officer,  Colonel  Jameson,  and  gave,  him  up.  Andr6 
asked  one  favor  of  Colonel  Jameson,  that  he  might  write  a  brief 
note  to  Arnold,  and  Jameson,  not  understanding  the  importance  of 
the  capture,  granted  his  request.  Andr6  wrote,  “  John  Anderson 
has  been  taken  on  his  way  to  New  York,”  and  sent  this  warning 
by  a  speedy  messenger.” 

The  note  reached  Arnold  in  time.  Washington  had  met  Rocham- 
beau  in  Hartford,  had  finished  his  talk  with  him,  and  was  on  his 
way  to  West  Point.  At  any  moment  Arnold  might  see  him  enter 
his  head -quarters.  He  hurriedly  made  all  his  preparations  for  escape, 
mounted  his  horse,  and  rode  to  the  nearest  boat-landing,  plunging 
down  a  steep  and  almost  impassable  precipice  to  reach  it.  This 
precipice  was  afterwards  named  “  The  Traitor’s  Hill.”  At  the 
landing  he  took  boat,  and  tying  his  white  handkerchief  to  a  stick, 
waved  it  aloft  that  he  might  not  be  fired  on  by  the  guns  of  the  fort, 
and  was  rowed  safely  to  the  Vulture.  Almost  as  soon  as  he  reached 
that  vessel,  orders  came  from  head-quarters  to  fire  on  his  boat. 
Washington  had  arrived  there  and  learned  of  his  treachery. 

Arnold  reached  New  York  in  safety,  leaving  Andr6  in  captivity. 
Andre  was  taken  before  the  American  officers  and  examined  as  a 
spy.  He  told  the  whole  truth  with  the  utmost  frankness,  and 
claimed  that  lie  was  not  a  spy,  that  he  had  had  no  intention  even 
of  entering  our  lines,  but  had  come  up  at  the  command  of  his  gen¬ 
eral,  to  meet  and  confer  with  Arnold. 

Wherever  he  went,  the  young  prisoner  won  all  hearts.  His 
manners  were  charming ;  he  was  handsome,  well  educated,  a  clever 
artist,  and  gifted  with  some  literary  ability.  The  hearts  of  the 
American  officers  with  whom  he  was  thrown  in  his  captivity 
warmed  toward  him,  and  every  one  felt  the  deepest  interest  in  his 
fate.  But  the  tribunal  before  which  he  was  tried,  decided  that  he 
was  a  spy,  and  as  a  spy  he  must  suffer  death. 

Sir  Henry  Clinton  made  every  effort  to  avert  the  sentence,  but 
the  judges  were  inexorable.  It  had  been  the  previous  custom  in 
both  armies  to  hang  all  spies,  and  there  had  been  repeated  execu¬ 
tions  on  both  sides.  When  the  British  demanded  Andre’s  release, 
the  Americans  reminded  them  of  the  fate  of  young  Nathan  Hale 
from  Connecticut,  who  had  been  found  inside  the  enemy’s  lines  as  a 
spy  in  1776,  and  had  been  hanged  immediately.  His  executioners 
had  denied  him  even  the  solace  of  a  clergyman  in  his  last  moments ; 
and  when  he  died  saying,  ‘  T  regret  that  I  have  but  one  life  to  lose 


TREASON  OF  BENEDICT  ARNOLD. 


257 


for  my  country,”  they  refused  to  send  any  account  of  his  last  mo¬ 
ments  to  his  friends,  declaring  “the  rebels  should  not  know  they  had 
a  man  who  could  meet  death  so  bravely.”  Hale’s  execution  had 
caused  great  excitement  in  the  country,  then  unused  to  the  bar¬ 
barities  which  all  war  involves,  and  although  many  spies  had  since 
been  hung,  they  remembered  more  vividly  than  any  other  the  exe¬ 
cution  of  this  promising  young  hero. 

When  Andr6,  at  first  expecting  to  be  released,  found  that  he  was 
to  die,  he  prepared  to  meet  death  firmly.  He  said  frankly  that  al¬ 
though  not  afraid  of  death,  he  dreaded  to  die  like  a  dog,  with  a  rope 
round  his  neck,  and  wrote  the  following  letter  to  Washington  :  — 

“  Sir  :  —  Buoyed  above  the  terrors  of  death  by  the  consciousness 
of  a  life  devoted  to  honorable  pursuits,  1  trust  that  the  request  I 
make  to  your  excellency  at  this  serious  period,  and  which  is  to 
soften  my  last  moments,  will  not  be  rejected.  Sympathy  toward  a 
soldier,  will  surely  induce  your  excellency  and  a  military  tribunal, 
to  adapt  the  mode  of  my  death  to  the  feelings  of  a  man  of  honor. 
Let  me  hope,  sir,  if  aught  in  my  character  impresses  you  with 
esteem  toward  me,  if  aught  in  my  misfortunes  marks  me  as  the 
victim  of  policy,  and  not  of  resentment,  I  shall  experience  the 
operations  of  these  feelings  in  your  breast  by  being  informed,  I  am 
not  to  die  on  a  gibbet.  I  have  the  honor  to  be 

“  Your  excellency’s  most  obedient  and  humble  servant, 

“  John  Andre.” 

Washington  laid  this  letter  before  the  military  tribunal  which 
had  judged  Andre.  It  was  composed  of  some  of  the  best  American 
officers,  and  it  included  also  the  humane  Marquis  de  Lafayette,  and 
Baron  Steuben,  who,  though  he  was  a  graduate  of  the  most  severe 
military  school  of  Germany,  was  a  tender-hearted  man.  This  tri¬ 
bunal  thought  the  petition  of  Andre  should  not  be  granted,  and 
Washington,  perhaps  from  a  repugnance  to  write  a  denial,  did  not 
answer  the  letter. 

But  Washington  was  not  a  man  who  could  remain  indifferent  to 
the  fate  of  so  noble  an  officer  as  Andre ;  and  while  the  British  were 
denouncing  him  as  a  monster  of  cruelty,  who  gloated  over  the 
blood  of  his  victim  ;  while  the  base  traitor,  Arnold,  dared  to  write 
him  an  impertinent  letter,  threatening  retaliation  if  Andre  were  not 
given  up,  Washington  was  silently  maturing  a  plan,  by  which  he 
hoped  Andre  might  yet  be  saved. 


258 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


To  save  Andr6,  it  would  be  necessary  to  substitute  some  one  in 
liis  place,  and  so  appease  the  demands  of  justice.  The  only  man 
who  could  avert  the  doom  of  death  from  Andrd,  was  Benedict  Ar¬ 
nold,  the  man  who  had  betrayed  him.  To  seize  Arnold  would  be 
in  effect  to  free  AndrC  This  was  Washington’s  project.  He  took 
only  Major  Henry  Lee  into  his  confidence,  an  officer  on  whose  pru¬ 
dence  lie  knew  he  could  rely.  He  asked  Lee  to  select  from  among 
his  soldiers  one  whom  he  could  trust  in  a  difficult  and  dangerous 
undertaking,  and  told  him  his  desire  to  capture  Arnold,  in  order 
that  the  gallant  young  Major  Andre  might  be  restored  to  his 
friends. 

Lee  chose  a  man  for  this  scheme,  a  brave  young  sergeant,  named 

John  Champe,  a  man  reserved,  vigilant,  and 
intelligent,  and  induced  him  to  make  this 
attempt.  Champe  was  to  desert  from  the 
American  camp,  and  join  the  British  in  New 
York,  in  such  a  manner  as  to  deceive  both  his 
friends  and  enemies.  After  a  long  conference 
with  Lee,  Champe  started  with  his  horse,  and 
made  down  the  Hudson  River  road  toward 
New  York.  The  American  sentinels  were 
Henry  Lee.  thickly  posted  to  prevent  desertion,  and  his 

ride  was  a  dangerous  one.  He  had  only  been  gone  half  an  hour  when 
a  watchful  officer  came  to  Lee’s  quarters  with  the  intelligence  that  a 
man,  most  likely  a  deserter,  had  passed  over  the  lines  toward  New 
York.  He  asked  Lee  for  an  order  to  send  a  body  of  mounted  men 
to  arrest  him.  Lee  made  all  the  delay  he  possibly  could.  He  feared 
the  brave  sergeant  might  be  killed  in  the  pursuit,  but  in  order  to 
keep  up  appearances,  he  was  obliged  to  send  the  detachment  after 
him.  The  flight  and  pursuit  were  a  hot  one.  Champe  was  in  im¬ 
mediate  danger  of  being  taken  by  his  fellow  soldiers,  when  after  a 
break-neck  ride  he  reached  the  bank  of  the  Hudson,  where  some 
British  galleys  lay  in  full  sight.  He  leaped  into  the  river,  and 
swam  for  the  galleys,  hailing  them  as  a  deserter  ;  they  approached, 
took  him  on  board,  and  sailed  with  him  to  New  York. 

Cliampe’s  comrades  on  the  bank  discharged  after  him  their  rifles, 
captured  his  horse,  and  returned  sadly  to  camp.  When  Lee  saw 
them  approaching  with  the  riderless  horse,  he  was  dumb  with  anxi¬ 
ety  as  to  the  fate  of  Champe,  but  when  he  learned  that  he  was  safe, 
concealed  his  joy,  and  went  to  report  to  Washington. 


TREASON  OF  BENEDICT  ARNOLD. 


259 


But  the  plan  failed.  The  action  of  the  court  was  so  rapid  that  it 
gave  no  time  in  which  to  carry  out  Arnold’s  capture.  While  Wash¬ 
ington  and  Lee  were  eagerly  waiting  news  from  Champe,  the  court 
had  fixed  on  the  immediate  execution  of  Andre’s  sentence,  and 
Washington  was  forced  to  consent  to  it.  It  is  said  that  his  hand 
could  hardly  command  the  pen  when  he  signed  this  death  warrant. 

Andre  met  death  like  a  brave  gentleman.  He  hoped  to  the  last 
to  be  shot,  and  when  he  entered  the  field  of  execution  and  saw  the 
gallows,  he  gave  an  involuntary  start.  “  I  am  reconciled  to  death,” 
he  said,  “  but  I  detest  the  mode.” 

“  While  waiting  near  the  gallows,”  said  an  eye-witness  of  the 
scene,  “  I  saw  some  degree  of  trepidation,  a  choking  in  his  throat, 
as  if  he  attempted  to  swallow.  So  soon  as  he  perceived  all  things 
were  ready,  however,  he  stepped  into  the  wagon,  saying,  ‘  It  will  be 
but  a  momentary  pang,’  and  taking  from  his  pocket  two  white  hand¬ 
kerchiefs,  the  provost-marshal  with  one  pinioned  his  arms,  and  with 
the  other  the  victim  himself  bandaged  his  own  eyes  with  perfect 
firmness,  which  melted  the  hearts  and  moistened  the  eyes,  not  only 
of  his  servant,  but  the  throng  of  spectators.  He  then  adjusted  the 
rope  to  his  neck  without  the  assistance  of  the  awkward  executioner. 
Then  raising  the  handkerchief  from  his  eyes  he  said,  ‘  I  pray  you  to 
bear  me  witness,  that  I  meet  my  fate  like  a  brave  man.’  ”  Thus 
ended  Major  Andre’s  life,  a  tragedy  which  is  one  of  the  most  touch¬ 
ing  of  this  whole  war. 

Champe  in  the  mean  time  pursued  the  plans  to  take  Arnold,  and 
once  had  laid  a  complete  plot  to  capture  him,  and  deliver  him  into 
the  hands  of  Lee.  At  the  very  moment  it  was  to  be  carried  out, 
Arnold  was  removed  to  a  new  command,  and  Champe,  who  was 
now  acting  as  a  deserter  in  the  English  service,  was  also  ordered 
elsewhere.  He  did  not  rejoin  the  Americans  for  months.  When 
at  length  he  reappeared,  his  comrades  were  astonished  to  see  Lee 
meet  him  with  marks  of  warmest  friendship,  but  after  his  story  was 
known,  the  whole  corps  to  which  he  belonged  joined  in  honoring 
and  admiring  him. 


260 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


CHAPTER  XLIX. 

DEFEAT  AND  VICTORY  IN  THE  SOUTH. 

Misfortunes  of  Gates  in  South  Carolina.  —  A  Stronghold  on  King’s  Mountain.  — General  Greene 
takes  Command.  —  A  Ragged  Army.  —  Victory  at  Cowpens.  —  Sharp  Retort  of  a  Patriotic 
Woman.  —  The  Bravery  of  South  Carolina  Women. 

Disaster  still  followed  tlie  American  flag  in  South  Carolina. 
In  July,  1780,  General  Gates  was  dispatched  with  a  large  armv  to 
oppose  Cornwallis  in  his  victorious  career  there.  Baron  de  Kalb, 
the  French  office^  who  had  come  to  serve  under  Washington,  was 
second  to  Gates  in  command. 

Since  his  victory  over  the  British  army  in  Saratoga,  Gates  had 
lost  the  modesty  which  befits  a  true  hero.  He  talked  vain-gloriously 
about  “  Burgoyning  the  army  of  Cornwallis,”  believing  that  he  need 
only  to  march  south  to  swallow  it  up  as  easily  as  he  had  conquered 
Burgoyne.  It  was  very  hot  weather,  and  his  troops  were  many  of 
them  Northern  men,  unaccustomed  to  the  climate.  He  marched 
them  under  the  torrid  sun  without  sufficient  rest  or  proper  food. 
Much  of  the  time  they  were  forced  to  eat  green  corn  and  vegetables 
gathered  on  the  march.  Diseases  of  all  kinds  set  in,  and  when  the 
troops  reached  South  Carolina  and  encamped  a  few  miles  from  Corn¬ 
wallis,  most  of  them  were  fitter  for  a  hospital  than  a  battle-field. 
Gates  was  for  immediate  battle,  against  the  advice  of  De  Kalb  and 
several  other  officers.  The  result  was,  that  when  the  battle  of  Cam¬ 
den  was  fought,  on  the  19th  of  August,  the  Americans  were  entirely 
unfit  to  meet  the  enemy.  A  portion  of  them  threw  down  their  arms 
and  fled,  when  they  saw  the  British  approaching  with  fixed  bayonets 

in  fierce  charge.  Baron  de  Kalb’s  division 
stood  their  ground  and  fought  bravely  but 
vainly,  and  the  Americans  suffered  a  bloody 
defeat.  Baron  de  Kalb,  pierced  with  eleven 
wounds,  fell  at  the  head  of  his  troops.  By 
the  terrible  ill-fortune  in  the  battle  of  Camden, 
Gates  lost  the  prestige  he  had  gained  at  Sara¬ 
toga.  He  was  soon  after  removed  from  his 
Baron  de  Kalb.  position,  and  General  Greene  was  sent  to  take 
command  in  the  South. 

Cornwallis,  believing  himself  now  secure  in  his  hold  on  the  South, 
sent  two  bodies  of  soldiery  to  scour  the  country,  and  cut  off  the  lin- 


DEFEAT  AND  VICTORY  IN  THE  SOUTH. 


261 


gering  remnant  of  the  militia  who  were  still  holding  out  against  the 
army.  One  of  these  bands  was  commanded  by  the  notorious  Tarle- 
ton  ;  the  other  was  under  Colonel  Ferguson,  a  man  almost  as  much 
hated  by  the  patriots  as  Tarleton. 

Ferguson  marched  over  the  line  to  Georgia,  where  a  band  of  the 
militia,  in  this  darkest  hour  for  freedom,  had  taken  up  their  stand. 
He  halted  on  King’s  Mountain,  a  mile  and  a  half  from  the  Carolina 
border.  Several  miles  below,  the  militia  had  heard  of  Ferguson’s 
approach,  and  had  mustered  all  their  strength  to  meet  him.  They 
intercepted  a  messenger  to  Cornwallis  bearing  this  dispatch :  “  I 
hold  a  position  on  King’s  Mountain  that  all  the  rebels  in  hell  can¬ 
not  drive  me  from.  —  Ferguson.’’ 

Nothing  daunted  by  this  bravado,  the  militia  marched  on  till  they 
were  in  sight  of  the  enemy’s  camp.  There  was  a  fierce  onset,  a 
fierce  defense.  The  militia  charged  up  the  hill.  The  British  met 
them  with  fixed  bayonets.  It  was  said  and  believed  in  the  British 
army,  that  the  Americans  might  stand  fire,  but  they  would  run  be¬ 
fore  a  charge  of  bayonets.  This  time  the  proverb  failed.  The  men 
stood  like  rocks  before  the  English  weapons.  Both  sides  fought 
like  lions.  At  last  a  cry  of  “  Quarter  !  Quarter!  ”  broke  from  Fer¬ 
guson’s  men,  and  shouts  of  victory  rose  from  the  militia.  These 
men,  imperfectly  disciplined,  half  clothed,  shoeless,  hatless,  with  such 
arms  as  they  could  collect  together,  had 
beaten  Ferguson’s  troops,  which  numbered 
nearly  one  fourth  of  the  forces  of  Corn¬ 
wallis,  had  taken  eight  hundred  prisoners, 
and  arms  and  ammunition  to  match.  The 
news  of  the  battle  of  King's  Mountain  was 
the  first  gleam  of  light  which  reached  W ash- 
ington  through  the  darkness  of  the  year 
1780,  in  which  treachery  and  defeat  had 
seemed  to  brood  over  his  country. 

General  Greene  brought  with  him  several  able  officers,  when  he 
came  down  to  South  Carolina  to  take  the  command  of  the  army, 
where  Gates  had  failed  so  signally.  He  had  brave  General  Mor¬ 
gan,  who  had  served  in  the  campaign  against  Burgoyne,  and  fought 
at  the  battle  of  Stillwater.  General  Lee,  who  had  been  Washington's 
confidant  in  the  endeavor  to  capture  Arnold,  also  joined  Greene,  with 
a  body  of  cavalry,  and  Colonel  Washington,  a  relative  of  the  com¬ 
mander-in-chief,  met  his  army  there.  A  brave  young  Polish  officer. 


262 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


named  Thaddeus  Kosciuszko,  also  went  as  a  civil  engineer,  to  make 
the  plans  for  fortifications.  This  Kosciuszko  had  also  planned  the 
defense  at  Bemis  Heights  in  the  campaign  against  Burgoyne,  and 
had  been  hard  at  work  strengthening  West  Point,  and  making  it  a 
stronghold  which  the  British  had  found  impregnable.  Young  Kos¬ 


ciuszko  was  a  noble  friend  to  liberty,  and  afterwards  fought  bravely 
in  his  own  unhappy  country  of  Poland,  to  gain  the  freedom  for  her, 
that  he  had  helped  the  United  States  to  gain  for  themselves. 

The  army  that  awaited  General  Greene  in  South  Carolina  was 
not  a  very  promising  one.  It  was  ragged  and  dirty,  and  looked 
very  much  like  the  famous  army  of  Falstaff,  in  Shakspeare’s  play 
of  “  Henry  IV.”  There  were  a  great  many  militia  belonging  to  the 
State  in  its  ranks,  and  although  they  often  fought  bravely,  they 
could  not  be  relied  on  in  a  pitched  battle,  as  fully  as  the  Continental 
troops,  who  had  been  drilled  and  disciplined  by  long  service  in  the 
war.  But  Greene  worked  vigorously,  and  showed  himself  a  master 
of  strategy  in  his  Carolina  campaign. 


DEFEAT  AND  VICTORY  IN  THE  SOUTH. 


263 


The  first  battle  after  his  arrival  was  fought  on  the  17th  of  Janu¬ 
ary,  1781,  at  Cowpens  in  South  Carolina.  The  place  has  not  a 
very  romantic  name.  It  was  so  called  from  a  herd  of  cows  who 
had  been  penned  up  near  the  battle-field.  It  was  not  far  from 
King's  Mountain,  where  Ferguson  had  been  defeated,  and  the  battle 
was  fought  by  the  troops  of  Morgan  and  Tarleton.  Morgan  was 
retreating  toward  the  north,  and  Tarleton  had  been  ordered  to  pur¬ 
sue  him.  He  was  so  sure  of  an  easy  victory  that  he  led  his  men 
forward  without  giving  them  time  to  eat  or  sleep.  At  Cowpens 
Morgan  suddenly  turned  and  accepted  the  challenge  to  fight.  The 
day  ended  in  victory  for  the  Americans  and  in  Tarleton’s  complete 
route.  At  first  the  Americans  had  given  way,  and  Tarleton 
thought  they  were  retreating,  but  at  the  moment  he  was  sure  of 
victory,  young  Colonel  Washington  rode  up  with  a  body  of  cavalry 
and  sent  the  redcoats  flying  from  the  field.  After  this  battle,  which 
proved  that  the  redoubtable  Tarleton  was  no  more  invincible  than 
Ferguson,  the  American  hopes  rose  higher.  The  news  of  the  vic¬ 
tory  reached  the  ears  of  a  patriotic  lady  in  whose  house  Tarleton 
had  quartered  himself  and  a  party  of  officers.  He  knew  the  lady 
had  a  great  admiration  of  Colonel  William  Washington,  and  took 
every  opportunity  of  sneering  at  him. 

“  I  should  like  once  to  see  your  friend,  Mr.  Washington,"  he  said 
one  day.  “  I  hear  he  is  very  insignificant  in  his  appearance.” 

“  If  you  had  taken  time  to  look  behind  you  at  Cowpens,  Colonel 
Tarleton,  you  might  have  seen  Colonel  Washington,”  rejoined  the 
lady.  Her  tongue  was  too  sharp  for  the  British  officer,  and  he  said 
no  more  after  this. 

The  patriotic  women  of  South  Carolina  equaled  the  men  in  bravery. 
They  not  only  encouraged  their  husbands  and  sons  by  brave  words, 
but  often  acted  the  part  of  messengers  in  expeditions  of  trust  and 
secrecy.  Two  brave  women  whose  husbands  were  in  the  army,  dis¬ 
guised  themselves  in  the  dress  of  men,  and  intercepted  two  British 
soldiers  bearing  dispatches,  captured  the  papers,  and  bore  them  to 
General  Greene,  whose  camp  was  not  far  distant.  They  showed 
the  spirit  of  the  noble  matron  who  told  Cornwallis  she  had  s even 
sons  in  the  army  with  General  Sumter. 

Cornwallis  had  stopped  at  her  house  to  dine  on  his  march  north¬ 
ward,  and  when,  in  answer  to  his  inquiries  she  told  him  this  fact,  he 
endeavored  to  persuade  her  of  the  folly  of  fighting  against  the  king, 
and  the  superior  advantages  they  would  enjoy  in  joining  his  army. 


264  STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 

She  heard  him  through,  and  then  putting  her  hand  on  the  head  of 
her  youngest  boy,  standing  beside  her,  answered  him  thus, — 

“  Sooner  than  I  would  see  one  of  my  boys  turn  back  in  their  noble 
enterprise,  I  would  myself  take  this  child,  enlist  under  Sumter  s 


Women  intercepting  Dispatches. 

banner,  and  show  my  sons  how  to  fight,  and  if  need  be,  to  die,  for 
their  freedom.” 

With  such  women  to  inspire  them,  no  wonder  the  men  refused  to 
be  beaten,  even  when  affairs  were  at  the  darkest  in  the  Carolinas. 


GREENE’S  CAMPAIGN. 


265 


CHAPTER  L. 

GREENE’S  CAMPAIGN. 

March  through  the  Carolinas.  — Attack  upon  Camden.  — Fort  Ninety-six.  —  Eutaw  Springs. 

As  soon  as  Cornwallis  heard  of  Tarleton’s  defeat  lie  hastened  on 
to  intercept  Morgan,  hoping  to  capture  him  before  he  could  join  the 
main  army  under  Greene. 

But  Greene  was  too  cunning  to  allow  his  able  officer  to  be  caught 
in  this  way,  and  had  himself  hastened  to  join  Morgan  as  soon  as  he 
heard  of  the  affair  at  Cowpens.  Cornwallis  with  his  whole  army 
then  prepared  to  pursue  the  Americans  and  force  them  to  battle. 
Greene  was  not  yet  ready  to  fight.  His  policy  was  to  hold  off  from 
battle  till  he  had  got  his  army  under  better  discipline  and  raised 
some  needed  reinforcements.  For  three  weeks  he  kept  up  a  rapid 
march,  the  Avhole  army  in  motion,  with  Cornwallis  close  behind. 
They  crossed  the  South  Carolina  borders,  marching  up  through 
North  Carolina.  Three  times  in  fording  the  rivers  in  their  path  the 
vanguard  of  Cornwallis  overtook  Greene’s  rear,  as  they  were  getting 
their  stores  and  ammunition  across  the  stream.  Each  time  there 
was  sharp  skirmishing,  a  few  left  dead  or  wounded  on  both  sides  ; 
still  the  retreat  kept  on  with  undiminished  ardor.  At  length  both 
armies  paused  near  the  Virginia  border,  and  after  several  weeks  of 
manoeuvring  and  watching  each  other’s  movements,  they  met  once 
more.  This  was  at  Guilford  Court  House  in  North  Carolina.  Gen¬ 
eral  Greene,  occupying  a  hill  near  the  court-house,  waited  for  the 
attack  of  Cornwallis.  He  had  more  men  than  the  British  com¬ 
mander,  but  they  were  badly  drilled,  and  many  of  them  were  state 
militia  who  had  been  picked  up  in  the  march  and  ordered  to  take  a 
gun  and  fall  into  the  American  ranks.  Many  of  these  were  Tories  at 
heart,  and  the  commander  knew  it.  They  were  stationed  in  the 
front  rank,  with  fifty  picked  soldiers  at  their  backs  with  loaded 
rifles,  ordered  to  shoot  the  first  man  who  tried  to  run  from  the 
■enemy.  None  of  the  men  had  eaten  a  good  meal  for  weeks.  They 
had  been  eating  frogs  from  the  swamps,  and  green  rice  from  the 
plantations,  and  no  army  fights  well  on  an  empty  stomach.  We 
cannot  wonder,  then,  that  the  Americans  were  beaten  at  Guilford 
Court  House.  If  Greene  had  not  led  them  back  in  an  orderly 
retreat  it  would  have  been  a  bad  day’s  work  for  them.  As  it  turned 


266 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


out,  the  victory  of  Cornwallis  was  hardly  better  than  a  defeat.  His 
army  were  tired  out  and  discouraged.  Weary  of  the  Carolinas,  he 
turned  aside  and  went  over  to  Virginia  to  join  the  royal  forces  near 
Yorktown. 

Greene,  after  resting  and  recruiting  his  forces,  went  back  again  to 
Camden,  South  Carolina,  where  Lord  Rawdon  commanded  the  re¬ 
mainder  of  the  British  army  in  the  South.  He  attacked  Camden, 
but  was  repulsed,  with  a  large  loss  on  both  sides.  Greene  fell  back 
toward  Fort  Ninety-six,  about  thirty  miles  north  of  Camden. 

All  this  time,  Marion,  Sumter,  and  Lee  were  in  the  field  attacking 
the  various  forts  held  by  British  and  Tories.  One  after  another 
these  posts  surrendered.  General  Pickens,  at  the  head  of  a  band  of 
militia,  was  emulating  Marion  and  Sumter  in  deeds  of  daring.  The 
larger  part  of  South  Carolina  was  again  in  the  hands  of  the  pa¬ 
triots. 

Greene  had  already  begun  the  siege  of  Fort  Ninety-six,  his  first 
point  of  attack  since  his  repulse  at  Camden.  Rawdon  with  fresh 
reinforcements  approached  the  stronghold,  hoping  to  enter  and  re¬ 
lieve  the  garrison  before  Greene  had  entirely  invested  it.  The 
American  commander  saw  that  he  must  storm  the  fort  before  Raw- 
don’s  army  approached,  and  accordingly  ordered  an  attack.  It  was 
gallantly  met  by  the  Royalists  and  Tories  inside  the  walls,  and  after 
a  siege  that  had  lasted  nearly  a  month,  Greene  was  obliged  to  fall 
back  unsuccessful. 

Shortly  after  this  Rawdon  left  the  army  and  returned  to  England, 
leaving  Colonel  Stuart,  the  officer  next  in  rank,  in  command.  It 
was  very  hot  summer  weather,  and  in  the  midst  of  swamps  and  in¬ 
terlacing  streams,  the  two  armies  lay  only  a  few  miles  apart,  for 
almost  two  months,  before  they  were  ready  to  risk  another  battle. 
Early  in  September  Colonel  Stuart  was  posted  at  Eutaw  Springs. 
Here  General  Greene,  joined  by  Lee,  Marion,  Sumter,  and  Pickens, 
determined  to  attack  him. 

The  battle  that  followed  is  known  as  the  battle  of  Eutaw  Springs. 
It  was  one  of  the  hottest  battles  of  the  war,  and  lasted  four  hours. 
The  Americans  at  one  time  gained  the  whole  field,  and  prepared  to 
claim  the  victory.  But  the  British  had  made  a  citadel  of  a  strongly 
built  brick  house,  surrounded  by  a  picket  fence ;  and  here  they  held 
a  strong  position  from  which  it  was  impossible  to  dislodge  them. 
After  a  sharp  contest  about  the  house,  the  men  and  officers  some¬ 
times  fighting  hand  to  hand  with  bayonets  and  swords,  Greene  fell 


THE  WINTER  OF  1780-81. 


267 


back  seven  miles.  Both  sides  claimed  victory,  but  the  result  was 
most  ruinous  to  Stuart,  who  immediately  after  the  fight  went  to 
Charleston,  to  seek  refuge.  Except  Charleston,  there  was  now  no 
place  of  importance  held  by  the  British  in  all  the  Carolinas. 


CHAPTER  LI. 

THE  WINTER  OF  1780-81. 

Mutiny  in  the  Army.  —  Riot  among  Wayne’s  Troops.  —  Mutineers  shot.  —  Benedict  Arnold 
ravages  Virginia.  —  Governor  Thomas  Jefferson.  — Arnold  in  his  Native  State.  — Barbarous 
Murder  of  Colonel  Ledyard.  —  Concentration  of  the  French  and  American  Forces  for  Cam¬ 
paign  of  1781. 

General  Wayne — “Mad  Anthony  Wayne,”  as  the  soldiers 
called  him  —  commanded  the  division  of  the  American  army  quar¬ 
tered  at  Morristown.  All  the  winter  of  1780-81  the  men  had  been 
living  there  in  huts,  badly  fed  and  only  half  clothed.  Early  in  Jan¬ 
uary  news  came  to  Wayne  that  his  whole  division  of  Pennsylvania 
troops  was  in  revolt  and  up  in  arms  against  their  officers.  General 
Wayne  rode  out  to  the  front  of  the  regiments  which  were  drawn  up 
in  hostile  order.  He  endeavored  to  argue  with  them,  but  although 
Wayne  was  much  loved  by  the  men,  they  would  not  listen  to  him. 
To  his  entreaties  that  they  would  lay  down  their  arms,  they  had 
only  one  answer,  — 

“  We  love  you,  General  Wayne ;  you  have  often  led  us  to  battle, 
and  we  respect  you  as  our  leader,  but  we  are  no  longer  under  your 
command.  If  you  attempt  to  fire  on  us  or  to  enforce  your  orders, 
we  shall  instantly  kill  you.” 

It  was  true  that  the  men  had  great  cause  for  complaint.  Their 
families  were  suffering  at  home  while  they  were  in  the  field,  starved 
and  ragged.  Congress  could  not  pay  with  anything  but  its  worth¬ 
less  paper  money,  and  the  war  seemed  no  nearer  its  end  than  two 
years  before.  Many  of  the  men  declared  they  had  only  enlisted  for 
three  years,  while  the  officers  claimed  it  was  for  the  war.  Feeling 
had  risen  to  so  high  a  pitch  that  the  whole  army  in  New  Jersey  was 
in  a  state  of  mutiny.  Washington  was  appealed  to,  and  Congress 
was  urged  to  pay  the  men.  But  they  could  as  easily  make  bricks 
without  clay,  as  furnish  money  from  an  empty  treasury.  Poor 
Robert  Morris,  the  Continental  treasurer,  had  a  very  difficult  task 
before  him. 


268 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


The  riot  among  Wayne’s  troops  was  finally  subdued,  and  a  large 
number  of  the  soldiers,  who  claimed  that  their  time  had  expired, 
were  allowed  to  leave  the  army.  No  sooner  was  this  over,  however, 
than  news  reached  head-quarters  of  another  still  more  alarming  re¬ 
volt  among  the  New  Jersey  troops.  Washington  at  once  decided 
that  it  would  not  do  to  compromise  with  the  mutinous  army.  He 
sent  a  force  of  troops  from  West  Point,  on  whose  fidelity  he  could 
depend,  to  subdue  the  mutineers.  They  were  surrounded  and  cap¬ 
tured  without  resistance.  Three  of  the  ringleaders  were  sentenced 
to  be  shot,  and  twelve  of  their  comrades,  who  had  been  engaged  with 
them  in  resistance  to  authority,  were  condemned  to  act  as  execu¬ 
tioners.  The  three  victims  were  led  out,  and  after  having  their  eyes 
bandaged  were  placed  on  their  knees.  The  miserable  men  who  had 
been  their  companions  plead  with  tears  to  be  spared  the  punishment 
of  firing  at  them.  But  the  severe  justice  of  war  is  deaf  to  pleading 
and  tears,  and  they  were  commanded  to  be  silent  and  obey.  Just 
before  the  twelve  guns  were  fired,  one  of  the  criminals  was  par¬ 
doned  ;  the  other  two,  fell  dead  under  the  fire  from  the  weapons 
which  were  leveled  at  them.  After  this,  there  was  no  more  revolt 
in  the  Continental  army.  It  was  a  cruel  necessity  of  war  that  these 
poor  wretches  should  die.  But  the  more  closely  you  look  at  war,  the 
more  you  will  discover  that  all  its  demands  are  cruel  and  inhuman. 

Sir  Henry  Clinton  had  heard  with  delight  that  the  army  was  in 
revolt,  and  had  sent  messengers  to  the  men  asking  them  to  desert. 
But  the  men,  whom  Arnold's  treachery  had  filled  with  a  horror  of 
desertion,  replied  that  they  “  were  not  traitors,  and  had  no  wish  to 
be  such ;  they  only  asked  for  justice  from  their  country.”  In 
most  cases  they  gave  the  British  messengers  up  to  their  officers,  and 
they  were  hung  as  spies.  The  poorest  man  among  the  Americans 
despised  the  base  traitor  who  had  sold  himself  to  the  enemy,  even 
while  they  suffered  for  food  and  shelter 

Arnold  felt  bitterly  the  hatred  and  contempt  all  his  countrymen 
manifested  for  him.  All  his  actions  showed  a  desire  for  revenge, 
and  a  delight  in  gloating  over  the  miseries  he  was  able  to  inflict. 
He  was  now  a  British  officer,  in  command  of  a  large  force,  and  was 
able  fully  to  indulge  his  malice.  Early  in  January,  1781,  the  Vir¬ 
ginians  were  alarmed  by  the  report  of  a  large  armed  fleet  coming 
up  the  James  River.  The  whole  country  was  filled  with  anxiety 
at  the  news.  Mr.  Thomas  Jefferson,  who  had  just  succeeded  Pat¬ 
rick  Henry  as  governor,  mounted  his  horse  and  rode  over  the  country 


THE  WINTER  OF  1780-81. 


269 


along  the  borders  of  the  Janies,  calling  the  people  to  arms,  and 
ordering  the  planters  to  burn  their  tobacco,  rather  than  allow 
it  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  British.  The  militia  of  the  State 
were  called  out  to  aid  the  regular  troops.  Baron  Steuben,  who  had 
command  of  the  Continental  troops  near  Richmond,  was  notified  that 
the  enemy  were  coming  on  to  the  city.  But  before  militia  or  regular 
troops  could  move,  Arnold  had  entered  Richmond,  burnt  the  town, 
made  bonfires  of  all  the  tobacco  stored  there,  emptied  all  the  gun¬ 
powder  into  the  river,  and  was  off  again  before  the  militia  or  the 
troops  could  catch  him.  He  went  back  down  the  James,  occasionally 
landing  to  plunder,  burn,  and  destroy  the  plantations  on  the  river 
bank.  The  curses  of  the  Americans  followed  him  wherever  he  went. 

After  this  expedition  to  Virginia  he  went  to  liis  native  State  of 
Connecticut,  and  entering  the  harbor  at  New  London,  resumed  his 
ravages.  He  ordered  the  town  to  be  burnt,  and  looked  on  while 
the  homes  of  his  fellow-citizens,  and  the  friends  of  his  youth  and 
childhood,  were  consumed.  Opposite  New  London,  Fort  Griswold 
was  situated,  commanded  by  Colonel  Ledyard  and  a  small  party 
of  militia.  Arnold’s  troops  attacked  and  took  this  fort,  which  was 
courageously  defended  by  the  little  garrison.  When  the  British 
officer,  Major  Bromfield,  entered,  he  cried  out,  “  Who  commands 
here  ?  ” 

“  I  did,  sir,”  answered  Ledyard,  “  but  you  do  now,”  at  the  same 
time  presenting  his  sword. 

Without  a  word  the  officer  stabbed  him  to  the  heart,  and  he  fell 
dead  in  the  door  of  the  fortress  that  he  had  so  gallantly  defended. 
Then  a  cold-blooded  slaughter  of  the  garrison  began,  in  which  nearly 
all  perished  by  sword  and  bayonet.  Such  acts  as  these  marked 
Arnold’s  treachery  to  the  country  which  had  given  him  birth. 

While  Arnold  was  ravaging  Virginia,  Washington  sent  Lafayette 
thither  to  join  General  Steuben.  All  the  soldiers  loved  the  young 
Frenchman.  From  his  own  private  purse  he  bought  them  comforta¬ 
ble  clothes,  shoes,  and  hats.  He  examined  the  rations,  to  see  that  his 
soldiers  were  well  fed.  There  were  not  many  deserters  from  his 
camp,  and  no  general  met  with  a  warmer  welcome  than  he,  when 
he  showed  himself  among  his  men. 

Washington  had  been  all  this  year  threatening  the  English  army 
stationed  in  New  York,  and  planning  to  take  that  city.  Sir  Henry 
Clinton  believed  this  was  what  the  American  commander-in-chief 
intended  to  do.  But  when  Cornwallis  marched  into  Virginia, 


270 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


Washington  changed  his  plans.  He  went  up  to  Rhode  Island  to 
see  the  Count  Roeliambeau,  who  was  stationed  there  with  a  large 
body  of  French  troops,  and  they  decided  to  go  to  Virginia  and  make 
the  Old  Dominion  State  their  battle-ground. 


Lafayette. 


General  Wayne  was  ordered  to  join  Lafayette  and  Steuben  in 
Virginia.  A  large  fleet  was  expected  early  in  the  fall  from  France, 
under  the  Count  de  Grasse.  If  Washington  could  elude  Clinton, 
and  reach  Virginia  with  Rochapibeau  before  the  British  coidd 
strengthen  their  forces  in  Virginia,  he  felt  sure  that  Cornwallis 
would  soon  be  in  his  power. 

The  plans  were  well  made  and  the  secret  well  kept.  The  two 
divisions,  under  Washington  and  his  French  ally,  reached  Philadel¬ 
phia  just  about  the  time  that  the  French  fleet  under  De  Grasse 
entered  Chesapeake  Bay,  and  the  fresh  troops  from  France  were 
landed  to  reinforce  Lafayette’s  army.  Clinton  was  cut  off  from 
Cornwallis,  who  was  down  in  Yorktown,  fifteen  miles  above  the 
mouth  of  the  York  River. 


SIEGE  OE  YORKTOWN. 


271 


CHAPTER  LII. 

SIEGE  OF  YORKTOWN. 

March  of  French  Army  to  Virginia.  — The  whole  Army  of  Washington  before  Yorktown.  — 
The  Batteries  open  Fire.  —  Cornwallis  attempts  to  Escape.  —  His  Surrender.  — General  Lin¬ 
coln’s  Revenge.  — End  of  the  War. 

The  march  of  Rochambeau  through  the  country,  to  Virginia, 
was  like  a  triumphal  march.  In  Philadelphia  the  streets  were 
crowded  with  citizens  eager  to  look  upon  the 
allies  to  whom  the  country  owed  so  much.  The 
magnificent  uniforms  of  the  officers,  glittering 
with  gold  lace ;  their  horses  gay  with  trappings 
of  gold  and  silver  and  scarlet  cloth  ;  the  dress 
of  the  soldiers,  white  broadcloth  faced  with 
green  ;  —  everything  was  in  contrast  to  the  poor 
and  plain  equipments  of  the  Continental  army. 

Washington’s  troops  were  in  unusually  good 
condition,  however,  and  all  the  patriots  felt  hopeful  that  the  coming 
campaign  would  be  successful. 

Cornwallis  had  been  busily  fortifying  Yorktown.  All  about  the 
city  he  had  thrown  up  trenches  and  constructed  redoubts  to  hin¬ 
der  the  approach  of  the  Americans.  Yet  he  knew  that  he  had  only 
7,000  men,  1,000  of  whom  were  negro  slaves,  armed  to  assist  the 
royal  cause.  The  united  army  of  the  French  and  Americans  could 
not  be  less  than  16,000,  13,000  of  this  number  disciplined  troops,  and 
the  other  3,000  picked  men  of  the  Virginia  militia.  If  Clinton  could 
not  send  an  army  to  his  aid,  Cornwallis  felt  that  his  case  was  hope¬ 
less.  On  the  28th  of  September  Washington’s  army  marched  from 
Williamsburg,  Virginia,  and  sat  down  one  mile  from  Yorktown. 
Only  a  short  distance  away  they  could  see  the  outer  works  of  the 
enemy ;  and  the  hum  and  bustle  of  life  in  the  British  camps  must 
have  reached  the  ears  of  the  Americans.  Everything  was  order 
and  regularity.  There  must  be  no  hurrying  and  no  false  move¬ 
ments  in  so  important  an  affair  as  a  siege.  Two  days  after  Wash¬ 
ington  appeared,  Cornwallis  drew  all  his  forces  inside  his  fortifica¬ 
tions.  He  had  received  private  dispatches  that  Clinton  would  send 
him  relief  by  the  5th  of  October.  If  he  could  hold  out  until  then, 

Yorktown  might  be  held  and  his  honor  as  a  British  leader  saved. 

18 


Rochambeau. 


272 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


Incessantly  the  batteries  kept  up  their  roar  against  the  besieged 
town.  Gun  after  gun  was  silenced,  and  the  ditches  outside  the 

town  were  filled  with  shattered 
fragments  of  the  wall,  and 
heaped  with  the  dead  and  dy¬ 
ing  who  had  fallen  in  defend¬ 
ing  it.  The  Americans,  under 
cover  of  the  intrenchments 
which  they  threw  up  in  the 
night  approached  every  day 
nearer  the  town.  Even  at 
night  the  batteries  were  not 
still,  and  every  now  and  then 
a  shell  went  whizzing  through 
the  air  like  a  blazing  comet, 
falling  with  a  great  roar  inside 
the  fortifications. 

By  the  evening  of  the  14th  of  October  only  two  redoubts  lay 
between  our  army  and  the  town.  It  was  decided  that  these  must 
at  once  be  carried.  Two  columns,  one  French  and  one  American, 
were  ordered  to  attack  on  the  right  and  left.  The  French  column 
was  commanded  by  Lafayette,  the  Americans  were  under  Colonel 
Alexander  Hamilton  of  New  York.  They  carried  the  redoubt  by 
the  bayonet  with  only  a  small  loss,  although  the  enemy  kept  up  a 
steady  fire  upon  them. 

Cornwallis  saw  himself  completely  surrounded,  with  no  hope  ex¬ 
cept  by  flight.  He  accordingly  planned  to  convey  his  men  across 
the  York  River,  in  boats,  under  cover  of  darkness,  and  march  north 
through  Maryland  and  Pennsylvania,  till  he  joined  Clinton  in  New 
York.  He  managed  with  great  secrecy,  and  had  already  got  part  of 
his  army  across  the  river,  when  a  terrific  storm  of  wind  and  rain 
came  up  which  overturned  some  of  his  boats,  and  obliged  the  men 
to  return  drenched  and  disheartened  inside  their  fortifications  again. 

Still  there  were  no  signs  of  Clinton’s  coming  to  his  relief.  Count 
de  Grasse  had  so  well  blocked  up  the  river  entrance  that  no  Eng¬ 
lish  ship  could  enter.  All  further  defense  was  useless  ;  and  after 
some  correspondence  with  Washington,  Cornwallis  was  obliged  to 
declare  that  he  could  no  longer  continue  the  struggle. 

The  general  appointed  to  receive  the  vanquished  troops  upon  the 
field  where  they  were  to  deliver  up  their  arms,  was  General  Lincoln, 


CLOSING  EVENTS  OF  THE  REVOLUTION. 


273 


who  at  the  surrender  of  Charleston  had  given  up  his  sword  to  Gen¬ 
eral  Cornwallis.  To  him  the  haughty  British  officer  had  dictated 
the  hardest  terms.  The  same  measure  that  had  been  meted  out  to 
him,  Lincoln  now  returned  to  his  adversary,  and  would  not  soften 
any  of  the  terms  of  capitulation  which  had  been  proposed. 

Cornwallis  claimed  to  be,  and  very  likely  was,  ill  on  the  day  of 
the  surrender.  It  was  a  glorious  day  for  America,  a  bitter  one  for 
the  British  army.  The  American  and  French  allies  were  drawn  up 
in  two  opposite  lines,  through  which  the  conquered  army  marched. 
Washington,  attended  by  Lafayette,  Steuben,  Knox,  and  others  of 
his  suite,  headed  one  line ;  the  Count  de  Rochambeau,  with  his 
officers,  led  the  other.  General  O’Hara,  one  of  the  staff  officers  of 
Cornwallis,  appeared  at  the  head  of  the  British  army,  which  was  led 
by  General  Lincoln  to  the  place  where  the  arms  were  to  be  stacked. 
The  men,  most  of  them,  maintained  a  sullen  silence,  shading  their 
faces  with  their  hats.  Some  threw  their  guns  with  violence  upon 
the  ground.  Some  of  the  officers  wept  outright  at  giving  up  their 
arms,  while  others  wore  a  look  of  haughty  defiance,  and  refused  to 
look  upon  their  conquerors. 

Washington  and  all  his  officers  showed  the  utmost  kindness  to 
their  captives.  Even  Cornwallis,  in  his  report  to  Clinton,  speaks 
of  this,  and  mentions  with  great  warmth  the  kindness  of  the  French 
officers,  which  he  hopes  will  be  remembered  in 
future  warfare.  But  Cornwallis  was  so  deeply 
humiliated  by  his  conquest  that  he  could  hardly 
appreciate  the  courtesy  of  Washington.  Once 
when  they  were  conversing  together,  Corn¬ 
wallis  stood  with  his  head  bare. 

“You  had  better  be  covered  from  the  cold, 
my  lord,”  said  Washington,  politely. 

“  It  does  not  matter  what  becomes  of  this 
head  now,”  answered  Cornwallis,  putting  his  hand  to  his  brow. 

With  the  siege  of  Yorktown  the  great  conflict  ended.  The  war, 
begun  on  the  soil  of  Massachusetts,  closed  in  Virginia.  There  was 
still  skirmishing  on  the  Indian  frontiers,  and  trouble  on  the  New 
York  border,  in  Sir  John  Johnson’s  region,  between  Tories  and 
Whigs ;  but  the  war  was  virtually  decided,  and  from  that  time  the 
colonies  of  England  became  free  and  independent  States. 


274 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


CHAPTER  LOT. 

CLOSING  EVENTS  OF  THE  REVOLUTION. 

Savannah  and  Charleston  evacuated  by  the  British.  —  England  baited  on  all  Sides.  —  She  is 
glad  to  have  Peace.  —  Our  Great  Statesmen  during  the  War.  —  Benjamin  Franklin  in 
France.  —  John  Adams  and  Thomas  Jefferson.  —  Henry  Laurens  in  the  Tower  of  London.  — 
John  Jay.  — The  First  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  —  The  Commission  to  Treat  for  Peace.  — 
The  Thirteen  English  Colonies  become  the  Nation  of  the  United  States.  —  Evacuation  of 
New  York  City.  —  Fireworks  on  Bowling  Green.  — Washington’s  Farewell  to  his  Officers. — 
Affecting  Scene  in  Francis’s  Tavern. 

I  have  told  you  that  the  war  was  virtually  over  when  Cornwallis 
gave  up  his  sword  at  Yorktown.  Yet  the  British  army  still  held 
to  their  posts,  arid  for  more  than  a  year  no  movement  was  made  to 
give  up  the  large  cities  of  New  York,  Charleston,  and  Savannah. 
In  South  Carolina,  Greene  still  kept  his  eye  fixed  upon  Charleston, 
ready  at  any  time,  if  there  was  opportunity,  to  strike  a  blow  for  the 
possession  of  the  city. 

In  July,  1782,  the  British  concluded  they  would  give  up  Savan¬ 
nah,  and  accordingly  marched  away,  leaving  the  patriots  there  to 
draw  their  breath  freely  once  more,  and  to  rejoice  in  the  absence  of 
military  rule.  By  the  14th  of  December  they  left  Charleston  also, 
and  General  Greene  marched  in  to  the  tune  of  “  Yankee  Doodle,” 
while  all  the  Whigs  in  town  waved  their  hats  and  handkerchiefs  in 
the  streets,  at  open  windows  and  from  balconies,  shouting,  “  God 
bless  our  army  and  the  gallant  General  Greene!”  All  the  Tories, 
who  could  not  go  away  with  the  British  army,  slunk  dejectedly 
into  corners,  and  wished  they  were  in  England,  or  some  other  place 
where  King  George  the  Third  was  still  acknowledged  the  lawful 
ruler. 

The  English  people  had  had  enough  of  war.  It  was  not  only 
that  France  was  aiding  America  with  men,  money,  and  ships,  but 
Spain  had  declared  war  with  England  ;  and  even  the  little  state  of 
Holland,  her  next-door  neighbor,  was  almost  on  the  point  of  quar¬ 
reling  with  her.  England  was  like  the  bull  in  a  Spanish  arena, 
baited  on  all  sides,  and  though  she  held  ©ut'  with  her  usual  pluck 
on  such  occasions,  she  began  to  breathe  hard,  and  show  signs  of 
giving  in.  When  a  large  party  at  home,  growing  larger  as  the 
war  went  on,  kept  crying,  “Stop  the  war!  Give  us  peace  !  PEACE  ! 
PEACE  !  ”  the  English  king  and  his  ministers  began  at  last  to  see 
that  they  might  as  well  stop,  before  all  the  other  powers  in  Europe 


CLOSING  EVENTS  OF  THE  REVOLUTION. 


275 


had  joined  hands  with  America,  and  each  taken  up  a  cudgel  in  her 
defense.  Therefore  the  men  in  power  who  had  advised  and  carried 
on  the  war,  now  resigned  their  seats  in  the  English  government, 
and  a  new  set  of  men  took  their  places,  determined  to  have  peace 
on  the  best  terms  they  could  get,  but  at  all  events  to  have  peace. 

All  through  the  war  we  have  heard  constantly  about  the  men 
who  have  been  fighting  and  winning  battles,  but  not  so  much  about 
men  who  have  been  managing  other  affairs  at  home  and  abroad.  I 
am  not  sure  but  those  were  the  greatest  men,  who  waited  on 
foreign  courts  and  princes,  borrowed  money,  supplied  Congress 
with  means,  and  wore  a  brave  face  before  strangers,  when  they 
were  heart-sick  with  anxiety  at  the  news  from  Washington  and  his 
army.  Now  the  war  was  over,  these  men  began  to  come  uppermost. 
States  always  use  warriors  or  politicians.  I  do  not  use  the  word 
“  politician  ”  in  the  sense  of  a  vulgar,  party  schemer,  but  to  denote 
a  man  who  can  work  with  politic  wisdom  for  the  good  of  his  coun¬ 
try.  Perhaps  statesman  would  be  the  better  word. 

Our  great  statesmen  had  most  of  them  been  either  in  civil  offices 
at  home  or  public  offices  abroad,  during  the  war.  At  the  head  of 
them  stands  Benjamin  Franklin.  He  had  been  several  years  in 
Paris.  I  do  not  know  what  we  should  have  done  without  him  there. 
I  think  we  owe  quite  as  much  to  his  long  head,  as  to  the  surrender 
of  Cornwallis  or  Burgoyne.  Everybody  in  Paris  reverenced  him. 
Louis  XVI.  was  then  King  of  France,  and  Marie  Antoinette  (poor 
lady,  she  afterwards  had  her  pretty  head  cut  off  by  the  guillotine) 
was  queen.  In  their  court,  the  ladies  and  courtiers  in  their  gor¬ 
geous  dresses,  like  a  flock  of  tropical  birds  and  butterflies,  fluttered 
round  Doctor  Franklin,  when  he  came  to  visit  the  royal  palace  in 
his  plain  brown  coat,  and  vied  with  each  other  to  show  him  honor. 
If  he  had  been  Prester  John,  or  the  Caliph  Haroun  A1  Raschid,  in 
the  glittering  robes  of  the  “  Arabian  Nights,”  he  would  not  have 
made  a  greater  sensation  than  he  did  in  his  own  quiet,  modest 
presence.  They  could  refuse  him  nothing  he  asked,  and  principally 
through  his  influence  came  the  tide  of  money  and  fleets  from  France 
which  had  helped  us  through  the  war.  His  shrewd  common  sense 
was  never  dazzled  by  flattery,  and  he  never  lacked  the  clear,  keen 
judgment,  which  threw  light  on  the  ways  that  were  darkest  and 
most  doubtful. 

Then  there  was  John  Adams,  who  had  been  to  the  front  ever 
since  the  stamp  act  agitation,  a  warm-hearted,  warm-headed  patriot. 


276 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


Not  so  cool  and  clear-headed  a  man  as  Franklin,  but  a  successful 
diplomatist,  who  had  succeeded  in  borrowing  money  of  the  little 
state  of  Holland  at  a  time  when  there  was  hardly  a  dollar  in  the 
hands  of  Congress.  Franklin  and  he  did  not  always  agree;  and 
the  great  philosopher  said  of  him,  “  Adams  is  always  honest,  often 
great,  and  sometimes  mad.”  Adams  was  the  first  minister  sent  to 
England  from  America,  after  the  United  States  were  declared  inde¬ 
pendent,  and  the  place  suited  him  and  he  suited  it.  He  was  a  bit 
of  an  aristocrat,  although  he  was  born  in  Massachusetts. 

Another  man,  very  different  from  either  of  these,  was  Thomas 
Jefferson,  as  ardent  as  Adams,  as  clear-sighted  as  Franklin.  He 
was  the  man  to  whom  we  owe  the  grandest  utterances  of  the  Dec¬ 
laration  of  Independence.  He  was  the  truest  democrat  that  ever 
breathed  the  breath  of  freedom.  By  that  I  mean  that  he  not  only 
declared  and  believed  that  men  had  equal  right  to  “  life,  liberty,  and 
the  pursuit  of  happiness,”  but  he  acted  on  that  belief.  He  was  Gov¬ 
ernor  of  Virginia,  you  know,  in  Arnold’s  invasion,  and  his  beautiful 
estate  of  Monticello  had  been  trampled  over  and  devastated,  his 
horses  killed,  and  all  his  plantation  laid  waste.  So  he  had  suffered 
with  the  rest,  for  liberty.  Like  Franklin,  he  was  more  than  a  poli¬ 
tician  :  a  man  of  wide  learning,  practical  acquirements,  cultivated 
tastes,  yet  simple  in  dress  and  manners,  a  loving  husband,  tender 
father,  and  loyal  friend.  Such  was  Thomas  Jefferson,  of  whom  we 
shall  hear  more  hereafter. 

Henry  Laurens  had  also  been  one  of  the  statesmen  brought  for¬ 
ward  by  the  war.  He  was  from  South  Carolina,  and  from  the  first 
had  stood  firm  for  liberty.  In  1777  he  was  made  President  of  Con¬ 
gress,  succeeding  John  Hancock,  who  had  served  in  that  capacity 
since  the  Declaration.  After  this  Laurens  was  sent  to  Holland 
to  make  a  treaty,  and  gain  their  sympathy  for  the  Americans. 
On  the  voyage,  his  vessel,  which  was  only  a  small  Dutch  trader, 
was  stopped  by  an  English  man-of-war.  When  Laurens  saw  his 
danger,  he  threw  the  box  containing  his  private  dispatches  over  the 
side  of  the  vessel.  Quick  as  he  was,  he  was  not  quite  quick  enough 
to  escape  the  eye  of  an  English  sailor,  who  leaped  overboard  and 
rescued  the  box.  The  officers  of  the  ship  read  treason  in  every  line 
of  the  dispatches,  and  seizing  Laurens  as  their  prisoner,  hurried 
him  off  to  London.  Taken  before  a  board  of  commissioners  he  was 
asked,  “  Is  your  name  Henry  Laurens  ?  ”  “  It  is.”  “  Are  you  the 

Laurens  who  was  President  of  Congress  in  America  ?  ”  “I  am.” 


CLOSING  EVENTS  OF  THE  REVOLUTION. 


277 


“  Then,  sir,  we  are  ordered  to  examine  you,  as  to  your  designs  and 
your  mission  abroad.” 

“  Your  lordships  may  spare  yourselves  the  trouble,  as  I  think  it 
my  duty  to  answer  no  questions.” 

On  this  he  was  sent  to 
the  Tower  of  London,  after 
some  discussion  whether  he 
should  be  ordered  there  as 
a  prisoner  of  state  or  be 
sent  to  Newgate  prison  as  a 
rebel  criminal. 

Not  least  among  this 
group  of  great  men  comes 
John  Jay,  whom  we  have 
seen  before,  sitting  in  the 
first  Continental  Congress  in 
Philadelphia.  All  through 
the  war  he  had  fought  with 
tongue  and  pen  as  effect¬ 
ively  as  Gates  and  Greene 

5 

and  while  Franklin  was  in 
France,  and  Adams  in  Hol¬ 
land,  he  had  been  in  Spain 
pleading  the  cause  of  the 
colonies  there. 

I  should  be  ungrateful  if  I  forgot  Robert  Morris,  the  hard-worked 
superintendent  of  the  empty  money  chests  of  Continental  Congress. 
He  had  about  as  thankless  a  task  as  anybody,  and  nobody  could 
have  done  better  unless  he  had  power  to  make  stones  into  gold,  and 
good  currency  out  of  dried  leaves,  like  the  enchanters  in  fairy  tales. 
He  pledged  his  own  credit  very  often  to  get  money  to  pay  off  the 
soldiers  ;  and  when  the  army  was  starving,  it  was  his  own  notes 
that  furnished  them  with  flour  and  beef.  He  was  scolded  about  and 
blamed,  when  affairs  went  badly,  because  he  did  not  furnish  money 
to  make  them  better,  and  was  that  useful  scapegoat  on  whom  to  lay 
all  faults,  —  “the  chief  of  the  Treasury  Department.”  In  his  old  age 
he  lost  his  fortune,  which  at  one  time  was  large,  and  spent  some 
of  the  last  years  of  his  life  in  a  debtor’s  prison.  “  Thus  the  world 
rewards  those  who  serve  it,”  said  Columbus,  sadly,  and  his  cry 
is  repeated  by  nearly  all  who  have  followed  in  his  footsteps. 


with  sword  and  bayonet 


278  STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 

Now  that  war  was  over  and  peace  was  to  be  talked  of,  these  men 
I  have  been  describing  to  you  were  looked  to  at  once  for  counsel.  In 
those  days  the  country  knew  the  men  who  would  serve  her  best, 

and  elected  them  without 
quarreling  over  it.  So 
F  r  a  n  k  1  i  n,  Jefferson, 
Adams,  Laurens,  and 
Jay,  were  at  once  chosen 
to  meet  with  the  English, 
French,  Spanish,  and 
Dutch  commissioners  in 
Paris,  and  decide  upon 
terms  of  peace.  When 
arrangements  were  all 
made  for  a  meeting  of 
these  high  mightinesses, 
only  Franklin  and  Jay  of 
the  Americans,  were  pres¬ 
ent.  Jefferson  had  a  sick 
wife  at  Monticello,  and 
he  was  too  good  a  hus¬ 
band  to  leave  her  alone 
if  any  one  could  be 
found  to  serve  in  his 
stead.  Laurens  was  still  in  the  Tower  of  London,  where  he  had 
remained  since  his  capture,  and  Adams  was  in  Holland  completing 
his  business  there.  Thus  Franklin  and  Jay  were  alone  to  represent 
the  wishes  of  their  countrymen  in  the  peace. 

Franklin  held  firmly  for  three  things,  before  signing  the  peace 
articles:  First,  that  the  United  States  should  be  recognized  as  a 
free  nation,  independent  of  England  ;  second,  that  the  Canada 
boundaries  should  be  satisfactory,  giving  us  control  of  the  great 
lake-chain  of  the  Northwest ;  third,  that  we  should  have  right  to 
fish  for  cod  off  Newfoundland  banks.  You  know  this  last  had  been 
a  great  privilege  ever  since  the  region  had  been  named  “  New 
France,”  and  the  sailors  of  Brittany  began  to  come  fishing  there. 
All  these  conditions  were  finally  agreed  upon,  after  much  talking 
about  it,  and  Franklin  and  Jay  went  home  triumphant. 

It  was  on  the  eighth  anniversary  of  the  battle  of  Lexington  that 
peace  was  proclaimed  in  America.  If  in  reading  these  chapters 


CLOSING  EVENTS  OF  THE  REVOLUTION. 


279 


about  the  Revolution,  you  have  realized  what  a  train  of  sickening 
horrors  follows  in  the  track  of  war,  you  will  be  able  to  rejoice  with 
the  United  States  when  it  was  all  over,  and  peace  reigned  over  the 
land. 

Now  followed  two  great  events  :  the  evacuation  of  New  York  by 
the  British,  and  the  disbanding  of  Washington’s  army.  Sir  Guy 
Carleton,  who  had  been  the  British  commander  since  Cornwallis 
surrendered,  left  New  York  city  in  November,  1783.  With  him 
went  ship-loads  of  Tories,  who  emigrated  to  Canada  or  Nova  Scotia, 
in  order,  as  they  declared,  “  to  escape  from  the  tyranny  and  oppres¬ 
sion  of  their  countrymen.” 

It  took  the  British  army  several  weeks  to  load  and  embark  upon 
their  ships,  and  leave  New  York  once  more  a  free  city.  When  they 
were  gone,  the  Americans,  under  General  Knox,  came  in  with  many 
of  the  patriots,  who  had  been  forced  to  live  away  from  their  houses 
while  the  British  occupied  them.  There  was  great  rejoicing. 
They  had  a  splendid  show  of  fireworks  that  evening  on  the  Bowl¬ 
ing  Green,  where  the  leaden  statue  of  George  III.  used  to  stand. 
The  statue  had  been  taken  down  and  melted  into  bullets  during 
the  war,  and  now  in  its  place  was  a  great  pyrotechnic  arch  of  vic¬ 
tory,  where  perched  a  dove  in  purple  flame,  holding  an  olive  branch 
of  green  fire,  and  all  around,  grand  rockets,  like  fiery  serpents,  lit  up 
the  waters  of  the  Bay  and  the  Hudson,  now  for  the  first  time  in 
seven  years  free  from  the  presence  of  English  ships  of  war. 

A  week  later,  one  morning  early  in  December,  Washington  met 
his  officers  in  the  parlor  of  an  inn,  called  “  Francis’s  Tavern.”  They 
came  together  for  the  last  time  to  bid  farewell  to  each  other  and 
their  beloved  commander.  The  men  who  had  been  comrades  in 
many  a  bloody  battle-field,  facing  death  together  for  seven  years, 
assembled  in  silence  and  deep  sadness.  There  were  many  tender 
friendships  to  sever;  many  would  say  “  Good-by,”  who  could  never 
meet  again,  and  the  sadness  of  parting  shed  a  gloom  even  over  the 
remembrance  that  their  efforts  had  aided  to  give  a  new  free  land  to 
the  world’s  company  of  nations. 

When  they  were  all  present,  Washington  filled  his  glass  with 
wine,  and  standing,  drank  the  health  of  the  company.  Then  he 
said,  his  voice  tremulous  with  emotion,  “  I  cannot  come  to  each  of 
you  to  take  my  leave,  but  I  shall  be  gratified  if  each  man  will  come 
and  take  me  by  the  hand.” 


280 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


As  he  said  this  General  Knox,  a  man  whom  Washington  dearly 

loved,  came  forward  and  fell  upon  the  neck 
of  his  commander-in-chief.  Washington, 
moved  to  tears,  embraced  and  kissed  him, 
and  the  ice  thus  broken,  each  one  came 
forward  to  take  his  leave.  The  bravest 
men,  those  most  unmoved  by  cannon  smoke 
and  ball,  were  not  ashamed  to  weep  that 
day.  And  in  the  midst  of  the  parting  of 
those  heroes,  who  have  worked  so  nobly  for 
their  country,  we  will  draw  the  curtain  upon  the  close  of  the  War  for 
Independence. 


General  Knox. 


PART  II. 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  NATION:  ITS  BIRTH,  CONFLICTS, 

AND  TRIUMPHS. 


PART  IT. 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  NATION  :  ITS  BIRTH,  CONFLICTS,  AND 

TRIUMPHS. 

CHAPTER  I. 


CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES. 

Forming  a  Government.  —  The  Constitution  and  its  Makers.  —  Grand  Celebration  in  New 
York  City.  —  The  Two  Political  Parties.  —  Washington  made  President.  —  Inauguration 
Ball.  —  Change  in  Dress  and  Manners  after  the  Revolution. 


For,  six  years  after  the  Revolution,  these  thirteen  United  States 
had  no  government  ex¬ 


cept  that  exercised  by 
the  “  Continental  Con¬ 
gress  ”  which  had 
worked  so  hard  all 
through  the  war.  This 
Congress 


was  doing 


its  best  to  pay  off  the 
debts  due  its  armies ; 
arrange  for  new  loans 
of  money  from  foreign 
countries ;  keep  the 
quarrelsome  Indians  in 
check  ;  and  administer 
justice  to  the  utmost  of 
its  power.  But  it  was 
the  general  opinion  that 
there  must  be  a  new 
government,  although, 
whenever  it  was  talked 
over,  there  was  a  great 
difference  among  the 
people  as  to  the  kind  which  would  suit  the  country  best.  A  large 


284 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


party  were  for  “  State  Rights,”  meaning  the  right  of  each  State  to  be 
independent  of  the  others,  with  an  agreement  that  all  should  unite  in 
times  of  war,  or  in  the  event  of  the  invasion  of  an  enemy  into  any 
one  of  the  States.  Another  party  wanted  a  strong,  united  govern¬ 
ment,  which  should  bind  all  the  States  into  a  great  nation,  “  one  and 

indivisible.”  Another 
party,  who  thought  the 
English  form  of  “  limited 
monarchy,”  about  as  good 
a  government  as  could  be 
made,  would  have  been  glad 
to  have  had  such  an  one  in 
this  country.  This  was  a 
small  party,  however.  The 
largest  part  of  the  peo¬ 
ple  believed  in  a  “  repub¬ 
lic,”  and  in  being  governed 
by  men  chosen  from  among 
their  own  ranks  for  a  lim¬ 
ited  time.  The  American 
colonies  had  flourished  for 
a  century  and  a  half,  with 
a  whole  broad  ocean  be¬ 
tween  themselves  and  their 
monarch,  and  consequently, 
had  learned  to  believe  they  could  get  on  very  well  without  any  king 
at  all. 

In  the  spring  of  1787,  a  convention  met  in  Philadelphia,  to  make 
“The  Constitution  of  the  United  States.”  Washington  was  made 
president  of  this  body.  Franklin,  now  a  venerable  man  ;  Roger 
Sherman,  whose  trembling  fingers  had  signed  the  Declaration  ; 
Robert  Morris,  the  treasurer  of  the  old  Congress  ;  Alexander  Ham¬ 
ilton,  whom  we  saw  leading  on  a  charge  upon  the  batteries  of  York- 
town,  —  all  these  were  in  the  convention.  With  them  many  other 
able  men  —  fifty  in  all  —  debated  earnestly  day  after  day,  rejecting 
this  proposition,  accepting  that  one,  striking  out  a  word  here,  put¬ 
ting  in  another  there  ;  endeavoring  to  make  the  whole  as  perfect  a 
set  of  laws  as  could  be  made  by  man.  To  aid  them  they  had  the 
“  Articles  of  Confederation  ”  which  Franklin  had  drawn  up  in  1777, 
when  the  colonies  united  to  carry  on  the  war.  Four  months  they 


CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.  285 

worked  in  this  way,  and  at  the  end  presented  to  the  States  the 
result  of  their  labor  for  their  approval.  Of  course  it  could  not  be  a 
perfect  Constitution,  and  it  could  not  suit  everybody.  Franklin 
said,  very  wisely,  that  he  was  not  exactly  suited  with  it,  but  he 
thought  on  the  whole  it  was  the  very  best  they  could  do,  with  so 
many  diverse  opinions  to  consult,  with  thirteen  States,  each  wanting 
something  a  little  different  from  the  others,  to  unite  under  one  gov¬ 
ernment.  Jefferson,  who  was  in  Paris,  learning  how  wretched  the 
tyranny  of  kings  can  make  a  nation,  was  so  afraid  of  seeing  the 
people  here  too  much  governed,  that  he  wrote  home  he  felt  sure  he 
should  never  like  the  new  Constitution.  On  the  whole  it  gave  very 
good  satisfaction.  Ten  of  the  States  accepted  it  at  once.  The  other 
three  held  out  against  it  for  a  time ;  little  Rhode  Island  was  the  last 
to  come  into  the  ranks,  and  stoutly  refused  for  a  year  or  two,  but 
finally  gave  in.  Thirteen  stars  were  set  in  the  flag  of  the  United 
States,  and  George  Washington,  “  the  father  of  his  country,”  was 
made  the  first  president. 


Inauguration  of  Washington. 


Then  the  large  cities  held  celebrations  on  the  adoption  of  the  new 
Constitution.  In  New  York  they  had  a  grand  procession,  such  as 
was  never  before  seen  in  America.  It  was  headed  by  a  person 
dressed  to  look  like  Columbus,  the  discoverer  of  our  country.  He 
was  surrounded  by  pioneers,  bearing  axes,  to  denote  the  early  set¬ 
tlers  in  the  wilderness  ;  then  came  the  farmers,  with  plows,  scythes, 


286 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


and  reapers.  All  kinds  of  artisans  followed,  in  cars  fitted  up  like 
workshops.  The  bakers  with  a  gigantic  loaf  of  bread,  ten  feet  high, 
inscribed  with  the  names  of  the  States ;  the  coopers,  binding  the 
staves  of  an  immense  barrel  with  a  strong  iron  hoop  called  “  The 
New  Constitution;  ”  the  butchers,  with  an  ox  weighing  1,000  pounds 
roasted  whole ;  the  cabinet  makers  with  a  “  federal  chair  of  state,” 
gorgeous  enough  for  an  eastern  emperor;  tailors,  masons,  carpenters, 
all  carried  some  emblem  of  their  trade.  In  the  ranks  were  thirteen 
beautiful  boys,  each  thirteen  years  old,  dressed  in  white,  with  rib¬ 
bons  and  garlands  of  green.  Grandest  of  all,  was  the  ship  of  state, 
drawn  on  a  car,  by  ten  milk-white  horses.  The  ship  was  manned 
by  thirty  sailors,  who  went  aloft  in  the  rigging,  furled  and  unfurled 
the  sails,  and  went  through  all  the  motions  of  bringing  a  ship  safe 
to  port  through  fair  and  foul  weather.  At  one  point  they  stopped 
and  took  a  pilot  on  board,  and  at  another,  the  gallant  vessel  was 
presented  with  a  flag,  which  was  received  with  cheers  from  the  sail¬ 
ors  and  the  crowd.  On  the  car  representing  a  printing-office,  a 
press  was  kept  all  the  time  in  motion,  printing  copies  of  a  patriotic 
song,  which  they  flung  right  and  left  among  the  crowd.  It  was  a 
grand  day.  The  people  shouted  and  hurrahed  till  they  were  hoarse, 
and  finally  the  procession  sat  down  to  a  banquet  in  a  fine  pavilion 
decorated  with  flags,  and  ate  the  barbecued  ox,  which  the  butchers 
had  roasted,  and  drank  toasts  to  the  Constitution,  and  to  George 
Washington,  “the  father  of  his  country.” 

With  the  Constitution  the  first  political  parties  were  born.  You 
hear  now  about  “  Democrats  ”  and  “  Republicans,”  or  whatever  else 
the  two  parties  who  vote  against  each  other  at  elections  are  called. 
At  this  time  there  were  “  Federalists”  and  “  Anti-Federalists.”  The 
Federalists  were  those  who  were  for  the  Constitution,  and  in  favor 
of  a  strong,  central  government.  The  others,  who  were  called  first 
“  Anti-Federalists,”  then  “  Republicans,”  and  lastly,  “  Democrats,” 
were  opposed  to  the  Federalists.  They  accused  them  of  being  an 
aristocratic  party,  and  said  they  wanted  to  make  the  government 
too  aristocratic  and  leave  the  States  no  power,  outside  the  general 
government.  Washington,  John  Adams,  Alexander  Hamilton,  John 
Jay,  were  Federalists.  Jefferson,  Patrick  Henry,  Samuel  Adams, 
James  Madison,  were  Anti-Federalists.  Please  keep  these  parties 
in  mind,  as  you  will  hear  of  them  often. 

On  the  4th  of  March,  1789,  Washington  was  made  president. 
He  had  been  at  Mount  Vernon  to  enjoy  a  little  rest  and  quiet,  be- 


CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES. 


287 


fore  he  entered  on  his  new  duties.  His  aged  mother  was  there, 
proud  of  the  son  whom  she  had  nursed,  when  she  saw  his  whole 
country  united  in  loving  and  honoring  him.  He  said  “  Good-by  ” 
to  the  pleasant  shades  of  his  home  almost  with  regret  as  he  went  to 
take  his  seat  at  the  head  of  the  nation.  On  his  way  to  New  York 
city,  where  Congress  was  to  assemble,  he  was  met  everywhere  by 
the  outpouring  of  the  people’s  love  and  reverence.  At  Trenton, 
where  he  had  crossed  the  Delaware  that  wintry  Christmas  night, 
twelve  years  before,  his  way  was  strewn  with  roses,  and  young  girls 
held  arches  of  flowers  over  him,  while  they  sang  hymns  of  gratitude 
and  welcome. 

In  New  York  there  was  a  grand  “  Inauguration  Ball,”  where 
the  array  of  handsome  dresses  was  almost  equal  to  that  of  the  Pa¬ 
risian  court.  Washington  left  off  his  blue  military  coat  with  buff 
facings  and  his  buff  breeches,  and  wore  a  handsome  suit  of  black 
velvet  with  white  silk  stockings,  and  white  satin  waistcoat.  He 
was  always  very  nice  in  his  dress,  and  with  his  tall  elegant  fig¬ 
ure  and  powdered  hair,  would  have  made  a  distinguished  appear¬ 
ance  anywhere.  John  Adams,  the  vice-president,  was  at  the  ball ; 
so  was  Hamilton,  who  was  the  new  secretary  of  the  treasury  ;  Gen¬ 
eral  Knox,  the  secretary  of  war,  and  his  distinguished  looking  wife, 
were  also  there ;  and  the  whole  assembly  presented  an  array  of  beauty 
and  grace,  such  as  any  court  in  Europe  might  have  been  proud  of. 

Jefferson  was  called  home  from  Paris  to  be  secretary  of  state. 
He  had  been  with  Lafayette  and  a  party  of  republicans  in  France 
who  wore  the  red  color  of  revolution,  and  astonished  all  his  friends 
on  his  return  by  appearing  in  a  white  broadcloth  coat,  very  long- 
waisted,  scarlet  waistcoat  and  breeches,  cocked  hat,  and  white  silk 
stockings.  It  was  enough  to  make  men  wonder  to  see  Jefferson, 
generally  so  plain  in  his  dress,  in  such  brilliant  hues. 

Just  about  this  time,  too,  boots  began  to  be  worn,  in  place  of  low 
shoes  with  shining  buckles,  and  high-topped  “  Hessians  ”  reaching 
to  the  knee,  with  dangling  tassels,  were  seen  on  the  feet  of  the  gen¬ 
tlemen  who  followed  the  newest  fashions.  There  were  a  good 
many  dandies  sported  their  new  Hessians  on  Broadway  in  those 
days.  The  new  government  made  changes  in  the  habits  of  the 
American  people  as  well  as  in  their  rulers.  This  began  to  show 
itself  in  the  clothes  of  the  working  men  and  women  in  the  large 
cities,  very  soon  after  Washington  became  president.  Before  the 
war,  the  mechanics  had  worn  leather  aprons  and  breeches,  checked 

19 


288 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


tow  shirts,  and  flannel  jackets  all  the  week,  and  on  Sundays  their 
best  clothes  were  homespun,  with  clumsy  shoes  and  brass  buckles. 
Now,  they  doffed  leather  aprons  when  they  left  the  work-shop,  and 
took  to  wearing  full  suits  of  broadcloth.  Some  people  complained 
that  you  could  not  tell  a  carpenter  or  blacksmith  in  the  street  from 
a  gentleman.  There  were  a  good  many  aristocrats  left  over  from 
the  old  order,  and  they  had  not  learned  that  a  man  may  be  both  a 
gentleman  and  a  carpenter  or  blacksmith.  Some  of  the  ladies,  who 
did  not  own  slaves,  but  kept  white  servants,  complained  that  the 
new  state  of  things  had  spoiled  the  servant-maids,  who  wanted  to  be 
called  “  hired  help,”  had  stopped  saying  “  master”  and  “mistress,” 
and  would  wear  caps  and  gowns  like  a  lady,  although  before  the 
war  they  had  been  content  with  blue  and  white  check  gowns,  and 
caps  without  frills.  And  they  had  grown  so  pert,  that  one  could 
hardly  give  an  order  to  a  girl  without  seeing  her  flounce  off  to  a  new 
place.  “  There  were  a  great  many  inconveniences  in  a  republican 
government,”  said  some  of  the  grumblers. 


CHAPTER  II. 

EVENTS  IN  WASHINGTON’S  ADMINISTRATION. 

Settlers  in  the  Western  Country.  —  “  D.  Boon  cilled  a  Bar.”  —  Scarcity  of  Salt.  — Danger  from 
Indians.  —  General  Anthony  Wajne  sent  to  fight  Savages.  —  Death  of  Wayne. — Three 
New  States  added  to  the  Nation. —  Story  of  Young  Andrew  Jackson.  —  Revolution  in 
France.  —  The  Guillotine. — French  Sympathizers  in  the  United  States.  —  Washington’s 
Public  Life  draws  to  a  Close. 


Meanwhile  the  good  ship  of  state  sailed  resolutely  on,  often 
among  troubled  waters.  There  were  the  Indian  troubles  always. 
The  red  men  seemed  to  have  made  up  their  minds  that  no  more 
white  men  should  settle  beyond  the  Ohio  River.  The  great  “  Ohio 
Land  Company  ”  had  been  formed,  holding  the  tract  which  now 
makes  all  the  States  of  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Michigan,  and  Wiscon¬ 
sin.  There  was  a  steady  tide  from  Connecticut,  Massachusetts,  and 
Pennsylvania,  spreading  over  that  country,  and  settling  up  and  down 
the  banks  of  La  Belle  Riviere  (the  beautiful  river),  as  the  Ohio  was 
called.  Across  the  Cumberland  Mountains,  in  the  fertile  valleys 
of  Tennessee — a  very  garden  spot  of  the  earth,  the  poor  Indians 
thought  it,  —  the  settlers  from  North  Carolina  were  rushing  in 


EVENTS  IN  WASHINGTON’S  ADMINISTRATION. 


289 


with  axe  and  plowshare.  In  Kentucky,  twenty  years  before,  Daniel 
Boone  had  gone,  a  lonely  hunter  with  his  gun  on  his  shoulder, 
and  stayed  all  winter, 
living  on  what  food  his 
gun  furnished  him,  with¬ 
out  salt  or  bread,  till  he 
could  make  a  clearing, 
and  next  year  bring  in 
a  party  of  friends  and 
neighbors  to  settle  with 
him.  Years  after,  some¬ 
body  found  marked  on  a 
tree,  in  the  spot  where 
he  had  wintered,  — 

I).  Boon  CillED.  A  BAR  on 
TrEE  in  thE  yEAR  1760. 

Y on  and  I  could  spell 
better  than  Boone  and 
his  comrades,  perhaps, 
but  we  might  not  have 
been  able  to  build  cities 
in  the  wilderness  with 
such  obstacles  to  contend  against. 

Very  little  in  the  way  of  luxury,  or  even  of  comfort,  could  be 
brought  by  these  settlers  into  the  wilderness.  If  they  got  a  log 
cabin  which  would  keep  off  the  sun  and  rain,  furnished  with  a  rude 
table  and  some  logs  sawn  off  a  tree  trunk  for  seats,  a  bed  in  one 
corner  and  a  fire-place  in  another,  with  an  iron  kettle  to  cook  in, 
they  were  very  well  off.  Salt  was  a  luxury,  yet  they  could  not  well 
do  without  it.  It  was  all  made  on  the  sea-coast.  In  Kentucky  every 
bushel  was  brought  over  the  mountains  of  Virginia  on  pack-horses, 
and  often  cost  the  settlers  sixteen  and  twenty  dollars  a  bushel. 
Sometimes  the  settlers  would  hear  of  a  salt  spring  in  their  vicinity, 
and  with  great  labor  would  make  a  little  home-made  salt,  —  dirty 
looking  stuff  it  was,  too, —  which  they  could  sell  for  three  or  four 
dollars  a  bushel ;  but  they  were  not  often  so  lucky.  In  those  days 
they  treasured  their  salt  almost  as  if  it  were  gold-dust. 

The  Indians  fought  them  every  inch  of  the  way.  Almost  every 
spring  of  sweet  water,  every  strip  of  fertile  meadow,  every  log  cabin 
built  in  a  clearing,  was  the  scene  of  danger,  perhaps  of  death.  Such 


290  STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 

stories  as  these  border  histories  are  full  of  !  Of  lonely  women  sitting 
by  the  firelight,  nursing  one  baby,  —  the  other  children  asleep  in  a 

truckle  bed  in  the  corner,  — 
watching  for  the  father 
who  has  gone  to  mill,  or  to 
the  next  village.  Whoop  > 
goes  a  horrid  yell  outside. 
“  Indians !  ”  whisper  the 
awakened  children,  hud¬ 
dled  under  the  bedclothes. 
The  mother  does  not  faint 
or  scream.  She  looks  at 
the  barred  door,  to  see  if 
it  is  strongly  fastened ; 
puts  the  baby  down,  takes 
the  loaded  gun  from  the 
corner,  and  fires  from  the 
nearest  loop-hole.  While 
she  loads  again,  she  cries 
in  hoarse,  masculine  voice, 
“  Now  boys,  fire  all  at 
once !  ”  that  she  may  de¬ 
ceive  the  Indians  into  the 
belief  that  they  are  garrisoned  strongly  inside.  Sometimes  the 
device  succeeds,  and  one  woman  drives  away  a  dozen  painted  war¬ 
riors.  Sometimes  they  scale  the  roof,  glide  down  the  chimney,  scalp 
wife  and  babies,  and  murder  the  husband  returning  to  his  desolate 
hearthstone.  Sometimes  they  set  fire  to  the  thatch,  the  flame  drives 
out  the  helpless  victims  to  be  taken  prisoners,  and  suffer  the  tor¬ 
tures  of  Indian  captivity.  It  is  the  old  story,  told  over  and  over 
again  in  every  border  State  of  this  nation.  How,  foot  by  foot,  the 
white  man  has  wrested  the  soil  from  the  Indian,  till  every  acre  has 
been  wet  with  blood,  every  hill  has  echoed  with  the  cries  of  the 
dying  who  have  perished  in  the  struggle. 

Washington  heard  the  appeals  for  help  from  the  settlers  in  this 
region,  and  sent  forces  to  protect  them.  General  St.  Clair  and 
General  Harmer  tried  first,  but  failed  to  subdue  the  savages.  At 
length,  in  1794,  he  sent  brave  Anthony  Wayne,  hero  of  Stony  Point, 
with  orders  to  try  first  to  treat  for  peace  with  the  savages,  and  if 
they  would  not  hear  words  of  peace,  to  give  them  war.  Wayne 


EVENTS  IN  WASHINGTON’S  ADMINISTRATION. 


291 


obeyed  faithfully.  He  sent  peace  emissaries  to  the  savages,  and 
they  killed  them.  A  second  and  third  time  he  made  offers  of  peace, 
till  the  Indians  whispered,  “  This  pale-face  is  a  coward,  and  afraid 
to  fight.”  Then  he  marched  on  them,  as  he  did  on  Stony  Point, 
and  forced  them  to  peace  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet.  He  built  a 
fort  in  the  Ohio  country  where  Fort  Wayne ,  Indiana,  now  stands, 
and  marched  back  again.  Brave  Anthony  Wayne  !  On  his  way 
home  he  was  taken  ill,  died  at  a  miserable  tavern,  in  a  wretched 
village  in  Western  Pennsylvania,  almost  unattended,  was  buried  in 
an  unmarked  grave,  where  he  lay  till  years  after,  when  his  son  re¬ 
moved  his  ashes  to  a  more  honorable  resting-place.  In  England, 
they  put  their  famous  dead  to  rest  under  a  noble  pile  called  West¬ 
minster  Abbey ;  but  the  great  men  of  America  may  sleep  where 
they  fall.  It  is  too  apt  to  be  the  bad  fashion  in  a  republic,  to  forget 
its  great  men  when  it  has  no  more  use  for  them.  It  does  not  gather 
up  their  dust  as  sacred,  and  build  monuments  to  them.  If  they  did 
we  might  have  a  Westminster  Abbey  too. 

Washington  was  president  from  1789  to  1797.  The  president’s 
term  of  office  is  only  four  years,  but  after  his  first  term  expired,  his 
friends  so  earnestly  desired  him  to  accept  the  office  a  second  time 
that  he  consented.  During  his  administration  the  Union  added  three 
new  States  to  its  number,  —  Vermont,  Kentucky,  and  Tennessee. 

Vermont  and  its  “  Green  Mountain  Boys,”  among  whom  you  will 
remember  Ethan  Allen  and  Seth  Warner,  had  been  fighting  many 
years  against  the  claims  of  New  York,  to  hold  her  as  part  of  that 
State.  They  had  held  stoutly  to  their  independence,  all  the  time 
growing  stronger,  and  every  now  and  then  asking  to  be  recognized 
as  a  separate  State,  till  New  York  got  tired  of  the  contest,  and  said 
if  Vermont  would  pay  her  $30,000,  she  would  give  up  her  claim. 
On  this  Vermont  paid  the  money,  and  in  1791  came  in  under  the 
Constitution  as  the  fourteenth  State.  The  very  next  year  Kentucky 
showed  her  population  of  77,000,  and  claimed  the  right  to  be  a  State 
also.  Kentucky  had  gained  her  name,  which  in  the  Indian  language 
means,  “  a  dark  and  bloody  field,”  by  the  Indian  battles  which  had 
stained  her  so  with  blood.  She  was  moderately  peaceful  now,  with 
growing  towns  and  villages,  and  Congress  let  her  into  its  circle  of 
States. 

In  1796  came  Tennessee,  so  named  from  the  pleasant  river  which 
watered  her  fertile  plains,  the  sixteenth  State  in  the  growing  Union. 
The  first  representative  from  this  last  new  State  was  a  tall,  gaunt, 


292 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


rather  awkward  looking  young  man,  named  Andrew  Jackson.  He 
was  born  in  North  Carolina,  and  when  a  boy  of  fourteen  had  been 
taken  prisoner  by  the  British  in  their  campaign  against  Greene. 
The  British  officer  who  captured  young  Andrew  Jackson,  ordered 
him  to  clean  his  boots,  and  when  the  boy  proudly  refused  to  do  such 
menial  service,  he  knocked  him  down.  This  is  one  of  the  first 
things  we  hear  of  him,  but  not  the  last.  He  is  poor,  and  has  had  a 
hard  struggle,  but  he  is  bound  to  make  his  mark.  Note  him  as  he 
stands  on  the  floor  of  Congress,  first  member  from  Tennessee,  for  we 
shall  hear  of  him  again. 

While  we  have  been  looking  at  Washington’s  administration  at 
home,  we  must  not  forget  that  the  United  States  had  become  one  of 
the  nations  of  the  earth,  had  ministers  at  foreign  courts,  and  was 
recognized  as  a  power  among  other  nations.  The  success  in  this 
country  of  the  republican  form  of  government,  was  talked  about  all 
over  Europe.  Kings  and  nobles,  who  live  by  the  permanence  of 
monarchies,  did  not  like  such  a  proof  that  nations  were  able  to  dis¬ 
pense  with  hereditary  sovereigns.  In  France  there  were  a  great 
many  republicans  who  hated  tyranny,  and  wanted  to  see  their  own 
country  under  a  better  government,  and  the  example  of  America 
made  them  long  still  more  ardently  to  be  free. 

France,  poor  country,  had  reason  to  be  discontented,  for  her  peo¬ 
ple  had  groaned  under  heavy  taxes,  paid  to  support  worthless  rulers, 
till  they  were  in  the  very  depths  of  misery.  Their  king,  Louis 
XVI.,  was  not  a  bad  man,  and  would  do  as  well  as  he  knew  how 
by  his  people.  But  discontent  had  grown  too  strong  for  him,  and 
all  over  Paris  was  heard  a  deep  undertone  of  rebellion  like  mutter¬ 
ing  thunder. 

Lafayette,  who  was  working  hard  in  France,  and  had  gained  many 
wholesome  ideas  about  liberty  in  America,  did  his  best  to  help  the 
king  and  advise  him  how  to  pacify  the  people.  But  the  trouble  had 
been  too  long  brewing,  and  a  great  hungry  people  who  had  been 
starving  on  black  bread,  while  their  rulers  feasted  off  gold  and  sil¬ 
ver  dishes,  could  not  be  fed  and  made  to  hear  reason  both  in  one  day. 
So,  in  spite  of  King  Louis  and  Lafayette,  and  other  good  men  with 
him,  the  great  French  Revolution  broke  furiously  over  France  in 
the  year  1792,  in  Washington’s  first  administration.  This  is  not 
a  history  of  France,  so  I  cannot  tell  you  much  about  this  revolution, 
except  that  it  was  the  bloodiest,  most  fearful  era  in  any  history  of 
any  nation.  For  months  the  streets  of  Paris  were  filled  with  a 


EVENTS  IN  WASHINGTON’S  ADMINISTRATION.  293 

hungry,  furious  mob  of  men  and  women,  who  looked  and  acted  like 
blood-thirsty  wolves. 

Guillotines  —  machines  for  cutting  off  the  heads  of  its  victims  — 
were  set  up  in  public  squares,  and  day  after  day  the  headless  bodies 
of  men  and  women  lay  piled  up  around  these  awful  scaffolds.  Mobs, 
wet  to  the  armpits  in  blood,  paraded  the  streets  bearing  aloft  on 
pikes  the  ghastly  heads  of  victims  they  had  murdered.  King  Louis 
was  beheaded,  and  his  queen,  Marie  Antoinette.  Beautiful  and  tal¬ 
ented  women,  noble  and  brave  gentlemen,  scholars,  soldiers,  peers 
and  commoners,  old  and  young,  were  sent  in  crowds  to  the  guil¬ 
lotine,  until  it  seemed  as  if  there  could  be  no  stop  to  this  horror. 
The  only  good  that  could  come  of  such  a  dreadful  thing,  perhaps, 
was  the  lesson  to  other  nations,  that  if  power  is  too  long  abused, 
and  a  nation  too  long  oppressed,  there  will  come  a  dreadful  day  of 
reckoning  in  which  the  innocent  and  the  guilty  must  suffer  together 
for  all  the  wrongs  that  have  been  done  in  the  past. 

When  the  French  Revolution  began,  before  it  got  to  these  days 
of  blood,  and  when  good  men  like  Lafayette  were  trying  to  make 
things  better,  all  the  French  republicans  looked  to  America  to  help 
them.  They  claimed  that  they  had  helped  us  in  gaining  our  liberty, 
and  there  was  a  strong  feeling  here  of  sympathy  for  them.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  more  cautious  Americans,  who  knew  we  were  a  new 
struggling  nation,  poor,  and  in  debt,  and  still  a  good  deal  afraid  of 
English  power,  argued  that  it  would  be  wisest  and  safest  to  keep 
out  of  French  troubles  altogether.  This  made  two  parties  in  this 
country  :  one  for  the  French,  the  other  against  them  ;  and  they  hated 
each  other  as  heartily  as  any  two  parties  ever  hated  in  the  whole 
history  of  politics.  The  Federalists,  with  Washington  and  Hamil¬ 
ton  at  the  head,  were  for  prudence  and  caution,  and  keeping  out  of 
French  quarrels.  The  Republicans,  with  Jefferson  to  lead  them, 
were  strong  sympathizers  of  France.  For  years,  until  the  troubles 
in  France  were  all  ended,  and  Napoleon  Bonaparte  had  made  him¬ 
self  emperor  of  that  distracted  country,  the  great  fight  in  American 
politics  was  between  the  sympathizers  with  France  and  those  who 
did  not  sympathize  with  her,  and  there  were  times  when  the  dispute 
ran  so  high  that  it  came  near  making  riot  and  bloodshed  in  this 
country.  One  of  the  French  ambassadors,  M.  Genet,  acted  very 
foolishly  here,  by  trying  to  raise  an  army  in  America  to  aid  the 
French  cause.  Washington  held  out  firmly  against  this,  and  main¬ 
tained  the  doctrine  of  not  interfering  in  French  matters.  For  this 


294 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


he  was  very  much  abused,  although  in  the  end  it  turned  out  to  he 
the  wisest  course.  After  a  time,  many  of  the  sympathizers  with 
France,  who  had  taken  her  side  through  a  generous  feeling  of  sym¬ 
pathy,  grew  disgusted  with  the  way  the  revolution  went  on  there, 
and  the  feeling  in  her  favor  grew  less  and  less  ardent,  till  it  died  out 
altogether. 

Washington’s  administration  now  drew  to  a  close.  The  only 
other  trouble  of  any  importance,  beside  the  Indian  wars,  and  the 
intense  feeling  about  the  affairs  in  France,  which  occurred  in  his 
time,  was  the  “  Whiskey  Insurrection  ”  in  Pennsylvania.  Whiskey 
is  likely  to  make  insurrections,  or  other  kinds  of  trouble  always,  and 
this  one  was  caused  by  a  tax  put  upon  this  liquor  by  the  govern¬ 
ment.  At  one  time,  in  1794,  it  threatened  to  be  a  serious  rebellion, 
and  the  rioters  burned  the  mails,  and  the  houses  of  the  tax-officers, 
and  made  a  great  deal  of  trouble.  But  Washington  sent  out  a 
strong  force,  which  subdued  the  rioters  and  restored  peace. 

In  1796  Washington’s  second  term  expired.  No  arguments  could 
make  him  accept  the  office  another  four  years.  He  was  sixty-five 
years  old  ;  he  had  served  his  country  faithfully ;  now  he  wanted  to 
spend  in  quiet  the  last  years  of  his  life  in  the  pleasant  home  at 
Mount  Vernon,  with  his  wife,  and  her  grandchildren,  whom  he 
loved  as  if  they  were  his  own. 

So  the  two  parties  had  to  select  each  a  new  leader.  The  Fed¬ 
eralists  took  John  Adams,  who  had  been  vice-president  with 
Washington  ;  the  Republicans  chose  Thomas  Jefferson,  who  had 
been  from  the  first  their  leader.  In  those  days  —  we  have  changed 
it  now  —  the  man  who  had  the  most  votes  in  the  presidential  elec¬ 
tion,  was  president  ;  he  who  had  the  second  highest  number  was 
vice-president.  When  the  votes  were  counted  it  was  found  Adams 
was  president  and  Jefferson  vice-president. 


CHAPTER  III. 

ADAMS’S  ADMINISTRATION. 

War  with  France  imminent.  —  Washington  and  Napoleon.  —  The  Nation  mourns  at  Washing¬ 
ton’s  Death. — The  Capital  changed  to  Washington  City. — Mrs.  Adams’s  Experiences  in 
Washington. 


It  seems  very  odd  now  to  think  of  the  two  heads  of  political  par¬ 
ties,  sharing  the  two  highest  offices  between  them.  Very  few  men 


ADAMS’S  ADMINISTRATION.  295 

could  be  found  more  unlike  in  mind,  manners,  and  opinion,  than 
John  Adams  and  Thomas 
Jefferson,  yet  one  was 
president,  and  the  other 
vice-president.  They 
agreed,  however,  in  both 
being  true  patriots,  with 
a  sincere  desire  for  the 
good  of  their  country, 
even  when  they  did  not 
agree  upon  the  measures 
by  which  they  could  best 
serve  her,  and  that  pre¬ 
served  them  from  any 
great  misunderstanding. 

The  disputes  between 
the  Federalists  and  Re¬ 
publicans  waxed  hotter 
than  ever  in  John  Adams’s 
administration.  In  1797 
the  country  came  very 
near  war  with  France, 
who  was  already  at  war 
with  nearly  every  country  in  Europe.  She  now  called  herself  a 
republic,  and  her  brilliant  young  warrior,  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  was 
leading  her  armies  to  victory  from  one  battle-field  to  another.  One 
of  the  first  things  President  Adams  did  was  to  send  an  embassy  to 
France  to  talk  over  her  relations  with  the  United  States.  Charles 
Coatesworth  Pinckney  was  one  of  these  ambassadors.  The  French 
ministry  hinted  to  him  that  the  United  States  might  make  matters 
smooth  by  paying  a  certain  amount  of  money  to  them.  “No,” 
answered  Pinckney,  “  Millions  for  defense,  but  not  one  cent  for  trib¬ 
ute,”  —  meaning  that  they  would  rather  spend  millions  of  dollars  to 
fit  out  ships  and  an  army  to  defend  the  country,  than  pay  one  cent 
as  a  bribe  to  buy  off  the  war  with  which  they  were  threatened. 

When  war  seemed  to  be  close  at  hand  the  United  States  began 
fitting  out  a  navy,  and  gathering  together  an  army.  Washington 
was  called  on  to  be  the'  commander,  and  again  came  forward  at  the 
call  of  his  country.  What  a  wonderful  story  history  might  have  to 
tell,  if  Washington  had  fought  in  a  campaign  against  the  armies  of 


296 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


Napoleon  Bonaparte.  But  this  did  not  happen.  War  was  not  fully 
decided  upon,  and  finally  the  cloud  passed  over,  and  there  was  fair 
weather  again. 

Only  a  few  months  after  the  country  had  heard  the  news  that 
their  beloved  commander-in-chief  was  ready  to  lead  its  armies,  in 
the  event  of  a  war  with  France,  came  the  news  of  his  sudden  death. 
George  Washington  was  dead  !  The  news  struck  a  chill  to  all  hearts. 
The  father  of  his  country,  the  beloved  leader  of  the  people,  covered 
with  honors  and  mourned  by  a  grateful  nation,  was  borne  to  his  tomb. 
T1  le  whole  people  wore  mourning,  and  a  united  voice  of  lamentation 
went  up  for  him  all  over  the  land.  In  England  and  France  the 
highest  honors-  were  paid  to  his  memory.  Many  ships  of  the  Eng¬ 
lish  fleet  wore  their  flags  at  half-mast.  Napoleon  Bonaparte  or¬ 
dered  the  banners  of  the  French  Republic  to  be  decorated  with 
crape.  Wherever  the  name  of  Washington  was  spoken,  it  was 
mentioned  with  tender  and  profound  reverence. 

In  1800  the  national  capital  was  changed.  When  Washington 
was  made  president,  the  seat  of  government  was  in  New  York  city. 
In  his  second  year  it  had  been  moved  to  Philadelphia,  where  the 
Colonial  Congress  had  held  its  meetings.  But  it  was  finally  decided 
that  the  capital  ought  to  be  farther  south,  on  the  banks  of  the  Poto¬ 
mac.  Accordingly  a  site  was  chosen,  a  president’s  mansion  was  built 
there,  and  a  national  capitol  begun  in  the  new  city  of  Washington. 
It  was  in  winter  weather  when  President  Adams  went  down  with 
his  wife  to  begin  housekeeping  in  the  new  edifice  which  the  United 
States  had  built  for  its  presidents.  Mrs.  Adams  was  a  thrifty 
housewife,  and  capable  of  making  the  best  of  things,  but  she  found 
Washington  a  rough  place,  and  a  great  change  from  New  York  and 
Philadelphia.  Except  the  new  public  buildings,  there  was  hardly 
a  house  in  sight.  A  few  poor  huts  where  the  laborers  lived  who 
had  been  engaged  on  the  buildings,  and  a  dreary  expanse  of  thick 
forests,  were  all  she  could  see  from  the  windows  of  the  cold  and 
cheerless  mansion.  Although  wood  was  so  plenty,  they  could 
hardly  get  laborers  to  cut  it,  and  they  could  not  burn  coal,  because 
there  were  no  grates  in  the  house.  Poor  Mrs.  President !  she  was 
afraid  they  could  not  keep  warm  enough  to  drive  off  the  ague :  and 
she  says,  no  doubt  thinking  regretfully  of  Philadelphia,  or  her  own 
dear  Boston  :  “  This  is  indeed  a  new  country.”  Remember  this 
was  the  capital  of  our  republic  in  the  first  year  of  the  century. 

President  Adams  was  not  re-elected  a  second  term.  The  Repub- 


JEFFERSON’S  PRESIDENCY. 


297 


lican  party  was  growing  stronger  and  stronger,  and  in  1801  elected 
Thomas  Jefferson  as  its  third  president,  and  Aaron  Burr  of  New 
York  as  vice-president. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

JEFFERSON’S  PRESIDENCY. 

The  Purchase  of  Louisiana.  —The  First  Journey  from  Ocean  to  Ocean.  —  Lewis  and  Clarke’s  Ex¬ 
pedition.  —  The  Sources  of  the  Missouri  and  Columbia  Rivers.  — The  Great  Pacific  Ocean.  — 
Return  of  Lewis  and  Clarke. 


The  country  had  been  growing  richer  and  more  prosperous  every 
year  since  the  war  ended.  Every  year  saw  an  increase  in  the  tide 
of  people  going  west  to 
settle  in  the  new  lands 
beyond  the  Ohio  River. 

A  rich  farming  country 
was  opening  up,  under 
the  plows  of  the  thrifty 
settlers,  all  the  way  from 
Ohio  to  Mississippi  Ter¬ 
ritory.  In  the  very  first 
year  of  Jefferson’s  rule, 
the  Territory  of  Ohio 
came  to  urge  her  claim  to 
be  made  a  State.  Con¬ 
gress  voted  in  her  favor, 
and  a  new  star,  to  repre¬ 
sent  the  State  of  Ohio, 
was  put  in  the  flag  of  the 
Union. 

There  was  always  some 
anxiety  about  the  Mis- 
sissippi  valley.  You 
know  the  Spanish  still 
owned  Louisiana,  and  that  territory  extended  up  the  river  from  New 
Orleans,  as  far  as  the  Falls  of  St.  Anthony,  where  Hennepin  had 
■explored. 

New  Orleans  was  now  a  large  town,  well  protected  by  forts  guard¬ 
ing  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi.  St.  Louis  was  a  snug  settlement  of 


298 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


log  cabins  where  dwelt  a  company  of  French  fur  traders  with  their 
Indian  wives,  whose  children,  speaking  a  mixture  of  the  French  and 
Indian  tongues,  could  be  seen  playing  beside  the  waters  of  the  muddy 
Mississippi. 

Spain  had  recently  ceded  Louisiana  to  France,  and  France  needed 
money  to  carry  on  her  wars.  So  when  President  Jefferson,  who 
was  on  very  good  terms  with  France,  offered  fifteen  millions  of 
dollars  for  her  possession  in  North  America,  Napoleon  accepted 
the  offer,  and  the  bargain  was  ratified  at  once.  Jefferson  believed 
in  a  good  large  country  with  no  troublesome  neighbors  at  the  back 
door,  such  as  we  might  have  had  if  the  Spaniards  or  the  French 
had  kept  the  Mississippi  River.  Thus  by  peaceful  purchase  we  got 
the  great  territory  of  Louisiana  and  the  towns  of  New  Orleans,  St. 
Louis,  and  all  the  trading  posts  and  forts  situated  on  the  great  river. 
The  Spaniards  still  kept  the  peninsula  of  Florida,  the  land  they  had 
first  settled  in  North  America. 

J efferson  offered  the  governorship  of  Louisiana  to  Lafayette,  who 
was  then  living  on  his  estate  in  France,  but  Lafayette  refused,  be¬ 
cause  he  was  unwilling  to  abandon  his  own  country.  Therefore,  Gen¬ 
eral  Wilkinson,  a  soldier  who  had  served  with  Gates  in  his  campaign 
against  Burgoyne,  was  made  governor  of  the  new  Territory. 

As  soon  as  his  purchase  was  complete,  Jefferson  was  eager  to 
explore  the  new  country  we  had  gained.  At  this  time  nobody  knew 
anything  about  a  route  across  the  continent.  There  was  a  romantic 
account  by  a  man  named  Jonathan  Carver,  who  had  journeyed  across 
the  country  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific.  But  with  the  excep¬ 
tion  of  this  solitary  traveler,  it  was  not  known  that  any  one  had 
ever  explored  the  country  from  one  ocean  to  another.  Jefferson 
planned  such  a  journey,  and  began  to  look  about  for  men  to  under¬ 
take  it. 

He  had  a  private  secretary,  named  Captain  Merri weather  Lewis, 
a  very  quiet  man,  but  a  man  of  undaunted  resolve  and  great  enthu¬ 
siasm  for  science.  To  him  and  to  Captain  Clarke,  who  had  been  a 
soldier  in  several  Indian  campaigns,  the  president  finally  intrusted 
his  project.  These  two  leaders  went  to  St.  Louis,  in  the  winter  of 
1808-4,  and  there  collected  a  party  of  forty  or  fifty  men,  and  all 
necessaries  for  ffieir  journey,  —  the  first  journey  across  the  American 
continent. 

They  started  up  th_  muddy  waters  of  the  Missouri  in  little  boats. 
Part  of  the  boats  worked  by  sails,  part  of  them  by  oars.  When  the 


JEFFERSON’S  PRESIDENCY. 


299 


current  was  too  powerful  to  be  stemmed  by  oars,  they  tied  their  boats 
by  ropes  to  the  trees,  and  worked  them  up  by  the  capstan.  They 
made  their  way  slowly,  and  only  reached  the  territory  of  the  Mandan 
Indians,  somewhere  in  Northern  Dakota,  when  cold  weather  set 
in,  and  they  found  themselves  winter  bound  among  the  savages. 
For  six  months  they  stayed  there,  living  in  rude  huts  which  thej 
had  built,  passing  the  time  in  hunting  and  fishing,  or  studying  th^ 
habits  of  their  Indian  neighbors. 

In  spring,  when  the  ice  broke  up,  the  canoes  were  put  in  order, 
and  they  set  out  once  more.  Hitherto  they  had  once  in  a  while 
met  French  traders  from  Canada,  or  British  traders  from  Hudson’s 
Bay,  seeking  furs  of  the  Indians,  but  now  they  began  to  enter  a 
wilderness  where  no  foot  of  white  man  had  ever  trodden. 


The  Uirtrod  Prairie. 


Their  plan  was  to  follow  the  Missouri  to  its  source,  and  from 
thence  to  strike  the  source  of  the  Columbia  River,  which  the  Indians 
had  told  Lewis  was  only  separated  by  a  low  ridge  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains  from  the  head  waters  of  the  Missouri.  Had  they  taken 
any  of  the  branches  of  the  Missouri,  they  might  have  spent  months 
of  fruitless  search,  and  perhaps  given  up  tlieir  journey.  But  Lewis 
had  the  scent  of  a  sleuth  hound  for  the  right  track,  and  led  them 
on  with  unerring  sagacity. 

On  they  went,  around  the  great  falls,  through  the  bold  rock  called 
“  Gate  of  the  Mountains,”  up  the  Jefferson  Fork,  till  the  river, 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


300 

growing  narrower  and  narrower,  would  no  longer  float  even  their 
light  canoes.  Then  they  took  the  boats  on  their  backs,  and  walked 
beside  the  stream.  One  day  one  of  the  men  put  one  foot  on  each 
side  the  narrow  rippling  waters,  and  thanked  God  that  he  had  lived 
to  bestride  the  Missouri  River.  When,  a  little  later,  they  reached 
the  chaste,  clear  fount  from  which  bubbled  the  first  drops  of  the 
mighty  stream,  every  one  drank  in  silent  thankfulness  for  their  suc¬ 
cess  so  far.  Only  a  little  mountain  ridge  divided  the  waters  of  the 
great  river  of  the  east  from  the  river  of  the  west.  They  could  stand 
upon  the  crest  and  toss  a  pebble  one  way  into  waters  that  flowed 
to  the  Atlantic,  and  the  other  into  waters  flowing  to  the  Pacific. 
When  they  reached  the  Columbia,  drinking  from  its  fountain,  they 
cried  aloud  that  they  quaffed  the  waters  of  the  Pacific  Ocean. 

As  soon  as  they  reached  a  point  where  they  could  embark  their 
canoes  on  the  Columbia,  they  proceeded  with  breathless  rapidity 
over  its  dangerous  rapids  to  the  ocean.  But  their  enthusiasm  was 
damped  by  the  greeting  the  Pacific  coast  gave  them.  It  was  in  the 
rainy  season,  and  the  ocean  of  their  hopes  was  covered  with  impene¬ 
trable  fogs.  For  days  and  weeks  the  rain  fell  in  steady  torrents 
till  the  leather  of  their  waterproof  tents  rotted  to  the  consistency  of 
brown  paper.  Their  clothes  were  never  dry.  They  suffered  from 
wet,  cold,  and  want  of  proper  food,  but  in  spite  of  all  kept  their 
health  and  spirits.  On  their  return,  they  wore  Indian  hunting 
shirts,  deer-skin  leggings,  and  moccasins  instead  of  shoes.  They 
were  bronzed  almost  as  dark  as  Indians.  When  Lewis  wished  to 
prove  that  he  was  a  white  man,  he  had  to  strip  up  his  sleeve  to 
show  the  original  color  of  his  skin.  In  this  guise  they  landed  at 
St.  Louis  in  July,  1806. 

“  Never  did  any  similar  event,”  writes  President  Jefferson,  u  ex¬ 
cite  more  joy  in  the  United  States.”  Every  citizen  of  the  nation 
felt  a  glow  of  pride  in  his  newly  enlarged  country,  so  rich,  bound¬ 
less,  and  romantic.  It  was  the  first  journey  across  that  continent 
where  now  the  Pacific  Railway  winds  across  the  two  great  mount¬ 
ain  ranges  to  the  western  ocean. 


WAR  WITH  ALGERINE  PIRATES. 


301 


CHAPTER  V. 

WAR  WITH  ALGERINE  PIRATES. 

Pirates  of  the  Mediterranean  Sea.  —  Demands  of  these  Sea  Robbers  on  United  States.  —  Gen¬ 
eral  Eaton’s  Interview  with  the  Bey  of  Tunis.  —  Royal  Beggars.  — War  declared. —  Daring 
Feat  of  Decatur.  —  The  Philadelphia  burned  in  the  Harbor  of  Tripoli.  —  The  Bashaw 
Hamet.  —  End  of  War. 

W hile  we  were  thus  broadening  our  territories  at  home,  we  were 
having  trouble  abroad  with  no  less  formidable  enemies  than  Alger¬ 
ine  pirates  who  infested  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  and  all  the  coasts 
of  southern  Europe.  The  Barbary  States,  you  know,  comprise  the 
countries  of  Algiers,  Morocco,  Tunis,  and  Tripoli,  and  are  formed 
of  a  narrow  strip  of  land  in  northeastern  Africa.  They  are  inhabited 
by  Moors,  Turks,  Arabs,  and  a  sprinkling  of  Jews.  The  principal 
religion  is  that  of  Mohammed,  and  they  were  sworn  enemies  to  all 
Christian  nations.  For  years  the  pirates  of  the  Barbary  States,  or, 
as  they  were  generally  called,  “  Algerine  pirates,”  had  been  a  terror 
to  every  merchant  vessel  who  came  to  trade  with  the  countries  near 
the  Mediterranean.  Any  unlucky  ship,  which  found  itself  near  the 
Atlantic  coast  of  Africa,  might  see  at  any  moment  an  odd-looking 
boat  with  long  lateen  sails,  swooping  down  upon  her  from  some 
sheltered  inlet  or  harbor,  where  she  had  lain  at  watch  for  her  prey. 
In  a  twinkling  she  would  sail  alongside  the  merchantman,  grapple 
her,  di'op  her  long  sails  over  the  vessel’s  side,  and  a  host  of  swarthy, 
turbaned  Moors,  with  bare,  sharp  sabres  held  between  their  teeth, 
belts  stuck  thick  with  knives  and  pistols,  would  come  swarming  over 
from  sails  and  rigging,  boarding  their  prize  from  all  sides-  at  once. 
The  merchantman,  with  a  crew  untrained  to  fighting,  would  surren¬ 
der.  Every  man  on  board  would  be  made  prisoner,  and  carried  to 
Algiers  or  Tripoli  to  be  held  for  the  payment  of  a  large  ransom.  If 
this  sum  were  not  paid  they  were  sold  as  slaves  in  the  public  market¬ 
places. 

It  is  wonderful,  when  we  read  of  this  thing,  to  see  the  terror  in 
which  these  miserable,  half  clad  pirates  held  half  a  dozen  European 
nations.  Italy  feared  them  as  a  mouse  fears  a  cat ;  Holland  and 
Sweden  trembled  at  the  name  of  Algiers  ;  Denmark  paid  them 
yearly  a  large  tribute  ;  the  only  nation  of  whom  they  stood  in  awe 
was  England.  For  her,  they  had  some  respect,  as  one  of  their 
proverbs,  “  as  hard-headed  as  an  Englishman,”  testifies. 


302 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


When  the  pirates  found  America  had  become  an  independent 
nation,  they  immediately  made  demands  on  the  government  to  pay 
them  tribute.  The  Emperor  of  Morocco,  Dey  of  Algiers,  Bey  of 
Tunis,  and  Bashaw  of  Tripoli  (such  were  the  high  sounding 
titles  of  these  squalid  potentates)  all  thought  they  had  found  a 
new  nation  weak  enough  to  submit  to  their  piratical  demands. 
And  at  first  the  United  States  did  submit  in  the  most  astonishing 
manner.  They  sent  consuls  to  the  Barbary  States  to  arrange  on 
the  amount  of  money  or  presents  to  be  given  these  rulers  to  buy 
their  favor  and  exempt  our  ships  from  their  plunder.  General 
Eaton,  an  officer  who  had  served  in  the  Revolutionary  War,  was 
one  of  these  consuls,  and  very  indignant  he  was  at  the  manner  in 
which  his  government  submitted  to  the  demands  of  these  barbarians. 
When  he  called  to  see  the  Bey  of  Tunis,  he  was  ordered  to  take  off 
his  shoes  in  the  anteroom,  and  enter  in  his  stocking  feet.  When 
he  approached  the  bey  in  the  stifling  little  den  only  eight  by  twelve, 
which  served  for  grand  audience  chamber,  he  was  ordered  to  “  kiss 
his  majesty’s  hand.”  “  Having  performed  this  ceremony,”  says  the 
bluff  old  soldier,  “  we  were  allowed  to  take  our  shoes  and  other 
property  and  depart,  without  any  other  injury  than  the  humiliation 
of  being  obliged  in  this  way  to  violate  one  of  God’s  commandments 
and  offend  common  decency.” 

These  potentates  of  Barbary  were  constantly  begging.  They  asked 
for  ships,  gunpowder,  arms,  cloth,  and  jewels  from  our  consuls. 
General  Eaton  says,  while  he  lived  in  the  consulate  at  Tunis,  not 
only  the  bey,  but  his  minister  and  half  a  dozen  officers  of  his  court, 
sent  for  their  coffee,  spices,  sugar,  and  other  groceries,  to  the  Ameri¬ 
can  house,  demanding  it  as  tribute.  Once  the  bey  saw  there  a 
handsome  looking-glass,  for  which  he  sent  next  day,  and  the  Ameri¬ 
can  consul  could  do  no  better  than  pack  it  off  to  him.  If  he  refused 
to  comply  with  any  demand,  the  bey  threatened  to  let  his  pirates 
loose  on  the  American  trading  vessels.  Here  is  a  specimen  of  the 
letters  sent  by  this  prince  of  pirates  to  the  Danish  consul. 

“  On  account  of  the  long  friendship  subsisting  between  us  we 
take  the  liberty  to  give  you  a  commission  for  sundry  articles,  naval 
and  military,  which  I  find  indispensable.  I  give  you  six  months  to 
answer  this  letter,  and  one  year  to  forward  the  goods.  And  re¬ 
member,  if  we  do  not  hear  from  you  we  hnoiv  what  steps  to  take." 

As  demand  followed  demand,  and  our  consuls  found  it  was  like 
filling  a  bottomless  tub  with  water  to  satisfy  these  fellows,  they  be¬ 
gan  to  demur. 


Decatur  Burning  the  Philadelphia. 


WAR  WITH  ALGERINE  PIRATES. 


305 


“  When  will  these  demands  end  ?  ”  asked  United  States  Consul 
Cathcart  of  the  Bashaw  of  Tripoli.  “  Never !  They  will  never  be  at 
an  end,”  answered  the  bashaw,  coolly.  “  Then  I  will  declare  war 
on  my  own  responsibility,”  said  the  consul.  And  so  finally  war  was 
declared. 

The  United  States  sent  Commodore  Edward  Preble  with  a  fleet 
to  Tripoli,  and  they  arrived  shortly  after  the  pirates  had  captured 
the  American  ship  Philadelphia.  The  officers  and  crew  of  the  cap¬ 
tured  vessel  were  taken  to  Tripoli  and  a  ransom  of  five  hundred 
dollars  a  head  placed  on  each  man.  The  Philadelphia  was  anchored 
in  the  harbor  in  plain  sight  of  the  town. 

One  of  the  officers  on  Preble’s  ship,  young  Stephen  Decatur, 
begged  to  be  allowed  to  destroy  the  Philadelphia ,  in  order  that  the 
pirates  might  not  be  able  to  use  her  in  their 
war  against  the  United  States.  Permission  was 
given  him,  and  Decatur  took  a  party  of  picked 
men  and  started  on  his  adventure.  He  first 
captured  a  boat  belonging  to  the  pirates 
which  was  loaded  with  a  cargo  of  women  slaves 
they  were  sending  to  the  markets  of  Constanti¬ 
nople.  This  vessel  he  fitted  up  and  new  bap¬ 
tized  The  Intrepid.  She  sailed  into  the  harbor 
of  Tripoli  one  midnight  with  all  her  crew,  Lieutenant  Decatur, 
except  the  man  at  the  helm,  lying  flat  on  their  faces  on  the  deck. 
The  ship  was  hailed,  but  her  captain  gave  plausible  answers  till 
they  reached  the  side  of  the  Philadelphia.  In  a  moment  Decatur 
and  his  crew  had  boarded  her,  and  throwing  over  the  deck  pitch, 
tarred  cloth,  and  all  sorts  of  combustibles,  set  fire  to  her.  Before 
the  enemy  had  recovered  from  their  surprise,  the  Intrepid  with  all 
sails  spread  was  outside  the  harbor,  which  was  lighted  up  as  brightly 
as  noonday  by  the  burning  ship.  Decatur  lost  not  one  man,  while 
the  Tripolitans  lost  twenty,  or  nearly  that  number,  who  were  sur¬ 
prised  on  the  ship,  and  part  of  whom  were  drowned  from  leaping  off 
the  burning  vessel. 

In  the  mean  time  General  Eaton  went  to  Egypt  and  found  Bashaw 
Hamet,  a  brother  of  the  reigning  Bashaw  of  Tripoli,  who  claimed 
that  lie  was  the  rightful  prince  of  Tripoli,  and  promised  General 
Eaton  that  he  would  forever  keep  peace  with  the  Americans  if  he 
would  aid  him  in  recovering  his  throne.  Eaton  had  only  a  hand¬ 
ful  of  men  with  him,  yet  with  the  force  of  Moors  and  Arabs  which 


306  STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 

Hamet  succeeded  in  raising,  they  started  overland  from  Egypt  to 
Tripoli  to  subdue  this  barbarous  empire  and  re¬ 
cover  his  throne  for  Hamet.  The  little  force  actu¬ 
ally  laid  seige  to,  and  captured  the  city  of  Derne, 
the  most  eastern  town  in  Tripoli.  At  this  moment, 
however,  peace  was  made  between  the  reigning 
bashaw  and  the  United  States  ;  General  Eaton  was 
obliged  to  give  up  the  town,  while  poor  Hamet,  who 
found  himself  worse  off  than  before,  was  left  with¬ 
out  a  kingdom  or  even  a  home. 

The  American  valor  in  this  war  had  the  good 
Mohammedan  soid.er.  egect  0f  convincing  the  pirates  that  the  United 

States  was  not  a  country  to  be  trifled  with.  They  said  we  were 
too  much  like  the  English,  and  for  the  present  no  more  demands 
were  made  for  either  ships  or  jewels  as  presents,  by  these  autocrats 
of  the  seas. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

JEFFERSON’S  SECOND  TERM. 

Aaron  Burr’s  Duel  with  Hamilton. — Hamilton’s  Death. — Burr’s  Disgrace.  —  First  Steam¬ 
boat  on  the  Hudson.  — Fulton’s  Triumph.  —  The  Great  Event  of  Jefferson’s  Administration. 

When  Jefferson’s  first  four  years  of  office  expired,  he  was  elected 
for  another  term.  George  Clinton  was  made  vice-president,  in  place 
of  Aaron  Burr,  who  had  been  getting  into  disgrace.  You  have  heard 
something  about  Burr  early  in  the  Revolutionary  War,  when  he 
marched  up  with  Arnold  to  take  the  fortress  of  Quebec.  He  did 
good  service  then  and  afterwards  in  the  war,  and  in  the  early  days 
of  the  republic  was  thought  to  be  a  brave  soldier  and  a  brilliant 
statesman. 

Washington  did  not  like  or  trust  Aaron  Burr,  however,  and 
Washington’s  friend,  and  secretary  of  the  treasury,  Alexander  Ham¬ 
ilton,  liked  him  even  less,  and  did  not  trust  him  at  all.  Hamilton 
more  than  any  one  had  opposed  Burr  in  all  his  political  schemes, 
and  there  was  a  strong  feeling  between  the  two  men,  although 
up  to  the  last  of  Burr’s  vice-presidency  they  had  not  quarreled 
outright. 

In  those  days,  duels  were  common.  If  a  man  felt  himself  insulted 


JEFFERSON’S  SECOND  TERM. 


807 


he  challenged  his  foe  to  meet  him  in  mortal  combat,  and  the  two 
stood  up  with  pistols  and 
fired  at  each  other  till  one 
or  the  other  fell.  Hamilton 
himself  had  already  lost  a 
son  in  a  duel,  and  ought  to 
have  been  brave  enough  to 
have  set  his  face  against 
such  foolish  wickedness. 

Yet,  when  Burr,  in  a  fit 
of  anger,  challenged  him, 

Hamilton  accepted  it,  and 
the  two  men  went  out  to 
meet  each  other  in  this  cold¬ 
blooded  manner,  which  they 
called  an  affair  of  honor. 

They  met  on  Weehawken 
Heights,  opposite  New  York 
city  on  the  Jersey  shore. 

Hamilton  fired  his  pistol 
into  the  air,  and  made  no 
effort  to  kill  his  opponent ; 
but  Burr  aimed  deliberately,  and  Colonel  Hamilton  fell  with  a 
mortal  wound  in  his  side. 


Notwithstanding  dueling  was  fashionable  among  military  men 
and  men  of  the  world,  the  death  of  Alexander  Hamilton,  who  was 
so  much  beloved,  and  had  been  a  faithful  servant  of  his  country, 
seemed  to  awake  the  whole  country  to  a  sense  of  the  horror  of  such 
a  deed.  Burr  was  denounced  as  a  murderer,  and  from  that  moment 
he  sank  in  public  estimation,  never  to  rise  again. 

If  Burr  had  possessed  sufficient  manhood  to  retrieve  his  past 
errors,  he  might  easily  have  done  so.  He  had  still  many  friends, 
and  he  had  been  gifted  by  nature  with  the-  power  of  winning  love 
and  confidence.  But  he  Avas  a  restless,  ambitious,  scheming  man, 
and  his  bitter  disappointment  at  the  failure  of  his  political  career 
made  him  false  and  unprincipled.  For  a  time  he  was  absent  in  a 
tour  through  the  West,  and  little  was  heard  of  him,  except  accounts 
of  his  visits  in  western  cities,  and  of  his  being  entertained  like  a 
prince  in  the  houses  of  wealthy  western  friends. 

All  at  once  the  report  burst  like  a  thunderclap  upon  the  country, 


£08  STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 

tliat  Aaron  Burr  was  secretly  plotting  to  invade  Louisiana,  seize 

New  Orleans,  stir  up  a  re¬ 
bellion  in  the  Western 
States,  break  up  the 
Union ,  and  make  himself 
emperor  in  the  domains 
he  had  gained  by  treason. 
All  the  country  was  filled 
with  excitement.  Burr 
was  arrested  and  tried 
for  treason  in  Richmond. 
Nothing  could  be  proven 
against  him.  He  ex¬ 
plained  in  defense  that 
he  was  intending  to  in¬ 
vade  Mexico,  and  the 
Spanish  possessions  in 
America,  in  case  of  a  war 
with  Spain,  which  then 
was  threatened.  Whether 
he  was  guilty  or  innocent 
could  not  be  decided  from 
the  evidence  brought  forward,  and  he  was  finally  acquitted.  But 
the  once  brilliant  Aaron  Burr,  third  vice-president  of  the  United 
States,  was  from  thenceforth  a  disgraced  and  ruined  man,  and  his 
name  ranked  next  to  that  of  Benedict  Arnold  in  ignominy,  and 
the  contempt  of  all  good  patriots. 

The  trial  of  Burr  was  the  most  important  political  event  of 
Jefferson’s  second  term.  But  the  greatest  event  in  his  whole  ad¬ 
ministration  was  now  at  hand.  Let  me  tell  you  what  it  was. 

One  day  in  September,  1807,  a  crowd  of  people  were  assembled 
on  one  of  the  piers  of  Hudson  River  in  New  York  city,  to  see  an 
extraordinary  boat  set  out  on  a  voyage.  The  boat  was  not  to  be 
carried  by  oars  or  sails,  but  by  steam ,  a  wonderful  new  means  of 
locomotion,  which  James  Watts  of  England  had  done  much  to 
bring  into  use  as  a  motive  power,  and  which  many  scientific  men  in 
Europe  and  America  had  been  experimenting  with  during  the  last 
half  century.  The  enterprising  American  who  had  built  the  strange 
new  boat  now  about  to  start  upon  its  trial  trip,  was  Robert  Fulton 
of  Pennsylvania.  He  had  started  out  in  life  as  an  artist,  had  painted 


JEFFERSON’S  SECOND  TERM. 


309 


a  few  tolerable  pictures,  but  finally  gave  up  art,  and  went  to  France 
to  experiment  there  in  many  inventions  with  which  his  fertile  brain 
teemed.  Fortunately  he 
met  in  Paris,  Robert 
Livingston,  whom  Jef¬ 
ferson  had  sent  as  minis¬ 
ter.  Fulton  told  him 
about  a  pet  project  of  his 
to  make  boats  move 
through  the  water  by 
steam.  The  idea  was 
not  an  original  one  with 
Fulton.  Many  others 
had  experimented  with 
steam,  and  twenty  years 
earlier,  an  American 
named  John  Fitch  had 
actually  succeeded  in 
propelling  boats  by  steam 
in  regular  trips  for  sev¬ 
eral  weeks,  on  the  Dela¬ 
ware  River  from  Phila¬ 
delphia  to  Trenton.  But 
for  want  of  money,  pow¬ 
erful  influence,  and  other 
adverse  causes,  Fitch  had  failed  to  establish  steamboat  navigation 
and  for  years  all  attempts  to  make  it  successful  had  been  dropped. 
Fulton  was  poor,  as  most  great  inventors  have  been,  but  Livingston 
furnished  him  with  money,  and  the  result  of  their  combined  efforts 
was  the  steamboat  lying  off  the  pier  on  the  Hudson  on  this  afternoon 
in  September,  1807,  ready  to  make  her  first  trip  to  Albany.  You  can 
fancy  what  anxiety  Fulton  felt  on  this  momentous  day.  On  the  dock 
the  crowd  of  people,  disbelieving  in  such  a  miracle  as  the  moving  a 
ship  by  steam,  laughed  and  jeered  at  Fulton  and  his  foolish  under¬ 
taking.  As  the  piston  began  to  move  slowly  up  and  down,  the 
wheels  to  splash  up  the  water  on  the  pier,  and  the  boat  to  move 
away,  how  the  people  must  have  wondered.  I  fancy  Fulton’s  heart 
must  almost  have  stopped  beating.  She  went  on  bravely,  scaring 
all  the  other  boats  out  of  her  track.  They  burned  pine  wood  in  those 
days,  instead  of  coal,  and  as  it  grew  dark  the  smoke  pipe  sent  up  a 


■310 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


glittering  column  of  sparks.  The  people  on  the  banks  of  the  Hudson, 
who  had  not  heard  of  this  new  monster  of  the  seas,  as  they  beheld  her 


Fitch's  Philadelphia  and  Trenton  Packet. 


passing  by  in  the  evening,  thought  it  was  some  supernatural  appear¬ 
ance,  and  many  declared  it  was  not  the  work  of  man  but  of  Satan. 


Fulton’s  Clermont  Steamer. 

After  all,  the  thing  was  a  success.  It  went  to  Albany  at  the  rate 


MADISON’S  PRESIDENCY. 


311 


of  five  miles  an  hour,  and  forced  people  to  believe  in  the  power  of 
steam  to  propel  vessels.  Fulton  thought  that  in  time  a  boat  might 
reach  six  miles  an  hour,  but  probably  never  more  than  six.  Now, 
our  great  Hudson  River  steamboats  go  to  Albany  at  the  rate  of 
twenty  miles  an  hour. 

Am  I  not  right  in  calling  this  the  greatest  event  of  Jefferson’s 
administrations  ?  Wars,  treaties,  and  political  intrigues,  become  small 
in  importance  when  compared  with  such  wonderful  inventions  as  the 
steamboat  and  telegraph. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

MADISON’S  PRESIDENCY. 

Character  of  Madison.  —  Tecumseh. — William  Henry  Harrison,  Governor  of  Indiana. — The 
Visit  of  i Tecumseh.  —  The  Prophet. — Battle  of  Tippecanoe. — Impressment  of  American 
Sailors  on  English  Ships.  —  The  Leopard  and  Chesapeake.  —  War  declared  against  England. 
—  Flogging  of  an  American  Sailor.  — War  Feeling  in  United  States. 


The  country  did  a  very  good  thing  for  itself  when  it  made 
James  Madison  of  Virginia  its  president.  He  was  a  near  and  dear 
friend  of  Thomas  Jeffer¬ 
son,  and  like  him  a 
Republican  in  politics. 

Quiet,  and  rather  re¬ 
served  in  his  manner,  he 
was  a  man  who  gained 
the  respect  and  confidence 
even  of  those  who  did  not 
agree  with  him.  Almost 
always  dressed  in  plain 
black  broadcloth,  he 
looked,  as  he  was,  a  plain, 
scholarly,  unpretending 
gentleman.  The  ten¬ 
dency  to  fine  clothes  and 
bright  colors  in  the  dress 
of  men,  was  fast  wear¬ 
ing  out  in  this  republic. 

There  was  a  striking  con- 
hast  between  the  inau¬ 
guration  dress  of  John  Adams 


a  lavender  colored  broadcloth. 


312 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


with  white  silk  stockings, — and  the  plain  black  suit  of  Madison, 
made  from  cloth  manufactured  in  the  United  States. 

When  Madison  took  his  seat  in  the  presidential  chair  there  was 
peace  and  prosperity  in  the  country.  But  there  was  a  strong  pros¬ 
pect  that  peace  would  not  be  long  continued.  The  Indians  on  the 
border  had  been  very  quiet  since  Anthony  Wayne  subdued  them, 
but  now  there  were  symptoms  of  gathering  trouble  among  them, 
There  had  arisen  among  the  Shawnee  Indians  a  chief  of  superior 
intellect  and  far-sightedness  to  the  rest  of  his  race.  He  was  en¬ 
deavoring  to  stir  up  the  Indians  to  resist  the  constant  invasion  of  the 
white  man  ;  to  prevent  them  from  being  pushed  off  their  pleasant 
hunting-grounds,  and  driven  farther  and  farther  west.  This  man’s 
name  was  Tecumseh.  Tecumseh  in  Indian  dialect  means  “  Flying 
Tiger,”  or  “  Tiger  leaping  at  his  prey.” 

Indiana,  where  Tecumseh’s  tribe  lived,  had  just  been  divided  from 
Michigan  and  Illinois,  and  made  a  Territory.  Its  governor  was 
William  Henry  Harrison,  who  had  been  one  of  the  officers  in 
Wayne’s  campaign  against  the  Indians.  Harrison  had  bought  a 
piece  of  land  on  the  Wabash  River  from  the  chiefs  of  Tecumseh’s 
tribe,  and  was  about  to  take  possession  of  it.  When  Tecumseh 
heard  of  this,  he  came  with  an  armed  band  of  warriors  to  the  settle¬ 
ment  where  the  governor  lived,-  and  told  him  he  wished  to  talk  with 
him  about  the  purchase.  Governor  Harrison  asked  him  to  enter  his 
house,  but  Tecumseh  refused.  The  air  of  the  white  man’s  dwelling 
stifled  him.  He  wanted  to  speak  in  the  open  air. 

When  they  were  all  assembled,  one  of  Harrison’s  officers  asked 
the  chief  to  sit  beside  the  governor,  saying,  “  Tecumseh,  your  father 
requests  you  to  seat  yourself.” 

The  savage  repeated  contemptuously,  “  My  father !  The  sun  is 
my  father.  The  earth  is  my  mother.  On  her  bosom  I  will  repose,” 
and  seated  himself  on  the  ground. 

In  simple  and  eloquent  speech  Tecumseh  laid  his  cause  for  com¬ 
plaint  before  the  governor.  He  declared  that  the  lands  of  the  broad 
West  belonged  to  all  the  Indian  tribes  in  common  ;  that  one  tribe 
had  no  right  to  sell  a  tract  without  the  sanction  of  all  the  others. 
Harrison  laughed  at  this  claim  ;  he  answered  him  that  the  tribes 
spoke  different  languages  and  were  different  nations  ;  that  his  bar¬ 
gain  with  the  Shawnees  was  a  just  one  ;  and  he  should  keep  the 
land.  In  the  middle  of  his  speech  Tecumseh  started  to  his  feet 
with  raised  war-club.  At  the  same  moment  the  other  warriors  also 
started  up  with  cries  of  rage,  brandishing  their  weapons. 


JEFFERSON’S  PRESIDENCY. 


313 


Harrison  and  his  men,  many  of  them  unarmed,  snatched  whatever 
was  nearest  at  hand  to  defend  themselves.  The  Indians  grew 
calmer,  and  the  storm  passed  over  without  bloodshed.  Tecum seh 
said  he  was  sorry  for  his  violence,  and  declared  he  was  willing  to 
have  peace  if  the  whites  would  leave  him  undisturbed  in  the  posses¬ 
sion  of  the  land. 

The  meeting  ended  without  further  result.  But  from  that  time 
Harrison  feared  at  any  time  an  outbreak  of  the  Indians.  Tecum- 
seh,  filled  with  the  idea  of  union  between  all  the  tribes  —  a  noble 
idea  and  worthy  of  a  more  civilized  hero  —  journeyed  from  tribe  to 
tribe  trying  to  form  a  confederation.  He  visited  the  Cherokees,  the 
Creeks,  the  Choctaws,  all  intelligent  and  warlike  tribes,  and  was 
untiring  in  his  efforts  to  inspire  them  with  his  spirit. 

While  Tecumseh  was  absent  he  left  the  tribe  under  the  control 
of  his  twin  brother,  who  was  known  among  the  savages  as  “  The 
Prophet.”  He  pretended  to  be  able  to  foretell  future  events,  and  to 
be  aided  by  powers  from  the  Great  Spirit,  which  would  enable  him 
to  bring  his  people  victory  in  war.  The  savages  had  great  rever¬ 
ence  for  the  Prophet,  and  believed  devoutly  in  all  that  he  professed 
to  do.  At  this  time  Harrison  was  constantly  hearing  rumors  of 
threatened  uprising  among  the  people  of  the  Prophet.  These  ru¬ 
mors  decided  him  at  length  to  go  and  break  up  their  town,  which 
was  on  the  Tippecanoe,  a  branch  of  the  Wabash  River,  not  far  from 
the  governor’s  fort.  He  accordingly  led  his  forces  through  the  for¬ 
ests  and  marshes  to  the  banks  of  the  river,  and  there  fought  the 
Prophet  and  his  men,  driving  them  from  their  town,  and  scattering 
them  over  the  country.  When  Tecumseh  returned  from  his  patri¬ 
otic  journey,  he  found  the  tribe  broken  up  and  dispersed,  his  plans 
fruitless,  and  could  only  vow  future  vengeance  against  his  enemies. 
He  knew  the  Americans  were  on  the  point  of  war  with  England 
again,  and  inflaming  all  the  Indians  who  would  listen  to  him  with 
his  own  desire  for  revenge,  he  hastened  to  offer  himself  and  his 
warriors  to  the  British  officers,  to  fight  against  the  United  States, 
This  trouble  with  the  Indians  broke  out  in  the  fall  of  1811,  and  in 
June  of  the  next  year,  this  country,  for  a  second  time,  declared 
war  with  England.  In  order  that  you  may  understand  the  cause 
of  this,  I  must  relate  to  you  a  few  events  that  had  been  leading  to 
war,  almost  ever  since  the  nation  had  been  independent  of  British 
rule. 

It  was  hardly  to  be  expected  that  Great  Britain  should  give  up 


314 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


her  American  colonies,  which  had  been  such  a  source  of  wealth  to 
her,  without  a  good  deal  of  bitter  feeling.  Ever  since  the  Constitu¬ 
tion  was  formed,  and  the  American  merchant-ships  began  their  trade 
with  Europe,  England,  who  called  herself  the  mistress  of  the  ocean, 
and  prided  herself  on  owning  the  finest  navy  on  the  globe,  had  done 
everything  she  could  to  injure  American  commerce.  The  United 
States,  who  wished  for  peace,  and  were  reluctant  to  go  to  war  again, 
had  borne  much,  both  from  France  and  England,  in  submissive 
silence.  But  one  wrong  had  aroused  the  people  more  than  any 
other.  This  was  the  impressment  of  Americans,  to  serve  as  sailors 
on  English  ships.  Let  me  explain  to  you  what  this  means.  It  had 
long  been  the  custom  in  England  to  fill  up  their  ship’s  crews  by  a 
method  called  “  impressment.”  When  they  could  not  get  men  to 
enlist  readily  as  sailors,  a  party  of  rough  men,  called  a  “  press-gang,” 
would  go  on  shore,  and,  upon  meeting  any  sturdy,  healthy  looking 
young  fellow,  would  seize  him  as  their  prize.  Sometimes  they 
greeted  him  jovially,  and  persuaded  him  to  drink  with  them,  then 
they  plied  him  either  with  liquor  or  drugs,  till  they  could  carry  him 
off  insensible  to  their  ship  ;  sometimes  they  knocked  their  victim 
over  the  head,  stunned  him,  and  carried  him  off  in  that  way.  When 
he  recovered  from  his  stupor,  he  found  himself  on  the  sea,  away 
from  home  and  friends,  perhaps  from  wife  and  children,  bound  on  a 
voyage  which  might  last  years.  If  he  refused  to  work  the  ship,  he 
was  lashed  to  a  mast  and  beaten  almost  to  death  with  a  rope’s  end. 
The  kt  press-gang  ”  was  at  one  time  almost  as  much  dreaded  in 
Europe  as  the  plague.  Many  a  homely  ballad  has  told  the  fate  of  a 
poor  fellow  thus  torn  from  all  that  was  dear  in  life  by  the  horrible 
“  press-gang.”  The  impressment  of  its  hero  was  also  one  of  the 
thrilling  incidents  of  many  of  the  novels  of  that  time. 

Yon  see  now  what  the  word  impressment  means.  What  will  you 
say  when  I  tell  you  that  at  the  time  war  was  declared  against  Eng¬ 
land,  it  was  alleged  that  there  were  6,000  free-born  Americans  who 
had  been  seized  from  American  vessels  to  serve  on  English  war  ships. 
And  the  cruelty  and  horrors  of  an  English  war  ship  of  three  quarters 
of  a  century  ago  have  never  been  told.  If  the  captain  were  a  bad 
man — and  the  English  navy  captain  of  this  day  seems  to  have  been 
specially  prone  to  brutality  —  he  had  every  chance  to  abuse  his 
power.  No  eastern  despot,  on  his  throne,  surrounded  by  crowds  of 
cringing  subjects,  had  more  autocratic  sway  than  a  ship’s  captain, 
out  ©n  the  broad  ocean,  over  the  crew  he  commanded. 


JEFFERSON’S  PRESIDENCY. 


3  If) 


Again  and  again  had  a  merchant  vessel  from  America  been 
stopped  on  the  high  seas  by  a  stout  man-of-war,  and  a  boat  sent  to 
search  her  for  English  seamen.  In  vain  would  the  captain  and  men 
protest  they  were  Americans  by  birth  and  residence.  The  crew 
were  overhauled,  all  the  stout,  strong  men  were  declared  to  be  Eng¬ 
lishmen,  and  carried  off  to  serve  Great  Britain.  Once  on  board,  if 
they  refused  to  work  they  were  flogged.  Many  an  American  sailor, 
escaped  from  this  slavery,  showed  great  scars  on  his  back  which  he 
bore  to  his  dying  day. 

In  the  last  year  of  Jefferson’s  rule,  a  British  vessel  called  the 
Leopard  had  met  the  American  Chesapeake  commanded  by  Captain 
Barron,  peacefully  pursuing  its  course  on  the  seas.  The  Leopard 
ordered  the  American  to  stop,  and  be  searched  for  English  seamen. 
The  Chesapeake  answered  that  she  had  no  English  sailors  on  board, 
and  very  properly  refused  to  stop.  On  this  the  British  ship  opened 
fire  on  the  American,  killing  and  wounding  part  of  the  crew,  and 
disabling  the  vessel.  Unprepared  for  fight,  Captain  Barron  was 
obliged  to  pull  down  his  flag  and  allow  his  ship  to  be  overhauled. 
Three  American-born  sailors  were  taken  off  the  vessel  and  forced  to 
serve  a  nation  whom  they  detested.  Such  outrages  as  these  were 
enough  to  stir  up  war  feeling  in  the  mildest  and  most  Quaker-like 
nation. 

In  spite  of  these  wrongs,  however,  the  threat  to  go  to  war  with 
England  was  opposed  by  a  large  party  in  the  United  States.  This 
was  the  Federalist  party,  who  when  they  found  the  Republicans 
wanted  war,  set  their  faces  against  it  with  all  the  bitterness  of  party 
hatred.  They  saw  in  the  war  feeling  of  Jefferson,  Madison,  and  the 
Republicans,  a  desire  to  go  against  England,  in  order  that  they 
might  deliver  the  United  States  up  to  France,  who  was  then  at  war 
with  England.  The  man  who  led  the  Federalists  in  their  hue  and 
cry  against  war  was  Josiah  Quincy,  one  of  the  ablest  men  of  Massa¬ 
chusetts.  He  well  represented  his  State,  which  was  very  largely 
opposed  to  Madison’s  policy.  Connecticut  and  nearly  all  New  Eng’ 
land  followed  the  lead  of  Quincy  and  his  State,  and  during  the  next 
three  years  divided  the  country  on  the  subject.  The  South  and 
West  favored  war,  and  Henry  Clay,  a  young  man  from  Kentucky, 
who  had  already  made  his  musical,  ringing  voice  heard  in  the  na¬ 
tion’s  councils,  took  the  lead  of  the  Republicans  against  Quincy  and 
the  Federalists.  Another  rising  man  from  Carolina,  named  John 
•C.  Calhoun,  took  the  part  of  Madison  and  the  war  measures. 


316 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


Thus  matters  stood  when  in  June,  1812,  President  James  Madi¬ 
son  declared  war  with  Great  Britain. 

On  the  decks  of  the  British  war  ships,  thousands  of  impressed 
American  sailors  who  joyfully  heard  the  news,  stood  up  and  refused 
to  pull  another  rope  on  board  the  ship  of  a  nation  at  war  with  their 
own  country.  They  were  flogged,  —  some  of  them  till  death 
released  them  from  torture,  —  but  the  larger  portion  held  out. 
“Will  you  do  your  duty  on  this  ship,”  asked  one  captain  of  an 
American  who  was  suffering  under  the  lash  for  refusal  to  work 
the  ship.  “  Yes,  sir,”  answered  the  man,  with  his  back  bleeding  at 
every  pore.  “'  It  is  my  duty  to  blow  up  this  ship,  an  enemy  to  my 
country,  and  if  I  get  a  chance  I  ’ll  do  it.” 

The  captain  looked  round  in  astonishment.  “  I  think  this  man 
must  be  an  American,”  he  said.  “  No  English  sailor  would  talk  like 
that.  He  is  probably  crazy,  and  you  may  untie  him  and  let  him 

g°-” 

Over  twenty-five  hundred  Americans  who  had  been  impressed  and 
who  thus  refused  to  serve,  were  sent  to  Dartmoor  prison  in  the  Eng¬ 
lish  county  of  Devonshire,  where  they  were  kept  in  most  wretched 
imprisonment  until  the  war  closed. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

OPENING  OF  THE  WAR  OF  1812. 

The  Scene  of  War.  —  Hull’s  Surrender  of  Detroit.  —  Disgrace  of  Hull.  —  The  Chicago  Massacre. 
—  Young  Winfield  Scott.  —  Defeat  on  all  Sides. 

The  United  States  had  reason  now  to  be  thankful  for  the  war 
with  the  Barbary  pirates,  for  that  war  had  in¬ 
duced  them  to  take  measures  to  fit  out  a  navy, 
and  they  had  a  few  ships  ready  for  war. 
“What!”  cried  the  Federalists,  “fight  with  Eng¬ 
land  on  the  sea.  Expect  that  this  new,  weak 
navy  of  ours  can  hold  out  for  one  moment 
against  the  magnificent  ships  of  England,  which 
rule  the  oceans  of  two  hemispheres!  It  is  mad¬ 
ness!” 

“Wait  and  see,”  answered  the  Republicans.  “Wait  and  see,” 
echoed  young  Decatur,  who  had  burned  the  Philadelphia  under  the 
noses  of  the  Tripolitans  in  their  own  harbor.  “Wait  and  see,”  cried 


OPENING  OF  THE  WAR  OF  1812. 


317 


hundreds  of  American  seaman,  burning  to  avenge  the  wrongs  of 
their  comrades,  taken  away  from  their  native  vessels  under  their 
very  eyes.  Let  us  also  wait  and  see. 

The  war  of  the  Revolution  had  been,  on  the  part  of  Great  Brit¬ 
ain,  a  war  for  conquest  and  subjection.  They  had  been  able,  during 
seven  years,  to  introduce  and  maintain  armies  in  the  heart  of  our 
country  in  some  of  its  largest  cities,  and  they  had  also  ravaged  and 
laid  waste  our  most  populous  farming  districts.  The  War  of  1812 
was  very  different  from  this.  The  struggle  in  nearly  all  cases  was 
on  our  boundary  lines  ;  along  the  borders  of  our  great  lakes,  between 
the  United  States  and  Canada  ;  up  and  down  the  Atlantic  coast ; 
and  on  the  borders  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  Such  a  war,  carried  on 
in  our  lakes,  and  upon  the  sea-coasts,  would  be  largely  naval  war¬ 
fare.  Of  course  the  English,  with  great  faith  in  their  navy,  be¬ 
lieved  the  Americans  could  man  no  ships  to  beat  them.  Harassed 
on  three  sides  by  English  fleets,  while  on  the  western  border 
Tecumseh  'and  his  Indian  allies  would  keep  up  a  series  of  blood¬ 
thirsty  attacks,  the  Americans,  with  a  weak  and  ineffectual  navy, 
would  soon  be  worried  into  making  a  dishonorable  peace,  which 
would  perhaps  oblige  them  to  give  up  much  they  had  gained  only 
a  few  years  previously.  This  no  doubt  was  the  hope  and  belief  of 
the  English  who  favored  the  new  war. 

The  fighting  began  on  the  Canada  border.  General  Hull,  who 
had  been  one  of  Washington’s  officers,  and  was  now  governor  of  the 
Territory  of  Michigan,  had  taken  command  of  the  troops,  which  were 
to  defend  Detroit,  and  the  borders  of  Lake  Erie.  Hull  seems,  from 
all  accounts,  to  have  been  a  man  too  timid  in  purpose,  and  too  waver¬ 
ing  in  judgment,  for  a  military  commander.  At  first  he  marched 
boldly  on  towards  Canada,  crossed  the  river  from  Detroit,  and  entered 
the  British  possessions.  Staying  here  for  three  weeks  without  ac¬ 
complishing  anything,  he  marched  back  again,  and  shut  himself  up  in 
Detroit.  There  he  waited  till  the  English  under  command  of  Gen¬ 
eral  Brock  began  crossing  the  river  to  attack  the  town.  Brock  had 
about  1,300  men,  half  of  them  Indians.  Hull  had  only  800  men 
inside  the  walls,  but  they  held  a  strong  position,  and  believed  they 
could  hold  the  fort.  On  his  approach  Brock  insolently  threatened 
to  let  the  Indians  loose  without  restraint  upon  the  garrison,  if  they 
refused  to  surrender.  General  Hull’s  fear  of  the  tomahawk  induced 
him  to  take  a  measure  which  no  excuses  have  been  able  to  make  ap¬ 
pear  other  than  cowardly.  He  hung  a  white  flag,  the  token  of  sub- 


318 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


mission,  on  his  outer  wall,  and  the  fort,  with  all  its  stores  of  provis¬ 
ions,  gunpowder,  arms,  indeed  the  whole  Territory  of  Michigan,  was 
given  to  the  enemy.  This  surrender  was  made  without  consulting  his 
officers  and  men,  who  were  eager  to  fight.  It  is  said  that  a  large 
number  of  the  men  shed  tears  of  mortification  and  anger,  when  they 
saw  the  white  flag  strung  up  on  the  walls.  One  officer  broke  his 
sword  in  pieces,  and  tearing  his  epaulettes  from  his  shoulders, 
trampled  them  under  foot,  in  his  anger  that  he  had  been  forced  to 
disgrace  his  uniform  by  this  surrender  without  striking  a  blow. 

A  cry  of  dismay  and  indignation  rose  up  against  Hull  all  over  the 
country.  He  was  tried  for  treason,  and  acquitted ;  but  convicted 
of  cowardice,  and  sentenced  to  death.  The  president  pardoned  him, 
however,  and  he  lived  from  that  time  in  retirement.  He  claimed 
to  have  surrendered,  that  he  might  save  his  army  from  the  horrors 
of  Indian  slaughter,  but  it  is  generally  believed  that  if  he  had  not 
been  overcome  by  his  caution,  he  could  have  defended  the  fort  and 
held  it,  against  such  numbers  as  attacked  it.  Humanity,  the 
noblest  of  traits  in  a  time  of  peace,  is  sometimes  dangerous  in  the 
barbarous  time  of  war. 

Hull’s  surrender  of  Detroit  was  in  August,  1812.  The  very  day 
before  it  took  place,  terrible  events  were  happening  on  the  banks  of 
Lake  Michigan,  on  the  very  spot  where  the  city  of  Chicago  now 
stands.  Then  only  a  wooden  fort,  surrounded  by  high  walls,  and 
one  or  twTo  dwelling-houses,  stood  on  those  shores  where  a  great  busy 
city,  stretching  for  miles  along  the  lake,  has  since  sprung  up,  as  if 
by  magic. 

In  this  wooden  fort,  called  Fort  Dearborn,  was  a  garrison  of 
about  fifty  men,  commanded  by  Captain  Heald.  Besides  the  sol¬ 
diers,  there  were  several  women  (wives  of  the  officers  and  men),  a 
number  of  children,  and  the  family  of  Mr.  Ivinzie,  who  had  built 
and  lived  in  the  solitary  house  which  was  close  by  the  fort.  There 
had  been  some  threatenings  from  the  Indians,  and  one  friendly 
savage  had  warned  the  fort  that  the  Pottawotamie  tribe  which  was 
encamped  all  about  them,  was  hostile.  While  Captain  Heald  was 
thinking  what  was  best  to  be  done,  orders  came  from  Hull  to  leave 
the  fort  and  bring  his  garrison  away  in  safety.  He  began  to  make 
plans  for  this,  and  gathered  his  boats  on  the  shore  to  embark  the 
whole  party,  and  cross  the  lake  to  Michigan.  Just  as  they  were 
about  to  go  on  board  their  boats,  had  already  left  the  protecting  walls 
of  their  fort,  and  were  on  their  way  to  the  lake,  part  on  foot,  part  on 


OPENING  OF  THE  WAR  OF  1812. 


319 


horseback,  and  the  children  in  a  large  wagon,  the  yells  of  the  sav¬ 
ages  resounded  in  their  ears,  and  they  were  surrounded  by  a  band 
ten  or  twelve  times  their  number. 

The  sight  of  these  warriors,  striped  with  paint  in  various  colors, 
naked  to  the  waist,  with  belts  stuck  full  of  scalping  knives,  war- 
clubs,  and  tomahawks,  hair  stiffened  till  it  stood  erect  like  porcu¬ 
pine  quills,  uttering  dreadful,  ear-piercing  yells,  was  enough  to 
strike  terror  to  brave  hearts.  But  the  forlorn  little  band  fought  for 
dear  life,  or  rather  like  those  who  prefer  death  to  the  tortures  of 
Indian  capture.  The  women  showed  the  same  bravery  and  desper¬ 
ation  as  the  men.  The  children,  twelve  in  all,  cowering  together  in 
one  large  wagon,  were  all  tomahawked  and  scalped,  by  a  hideously 
painted  young  savage  who  mounted  on  one  of  the  wheels  and  dis¬ 
patched  them  all.  In  a  few  minutes  from  the  time  the  attack  began, 
two  thirds  of  the  party  were  killed.  The  remainder  were  taken 
prisoners  and  carried  to  the  Pottawotamie  camp.  Most  of  these 
were  afterwards  ransomed  and  rejoined  their  friends.  To-day  the 
streets  of  Chicago  bear  the  names  of  several  of  the  victims  of  this 
slaughter. 

Hardly  had  the  news  of  these  misfortunes  reached  the  ears  of  gov¬ 
ernment  when  we  suffered  another  defeat  at  Niagara.  General  Van 
Rensselaer,  of  good  Holland  stock,  as  his  name  denotes,  was  stationed 
with  his  division  at  Lewiston,  near  Buffalo.  He  planned  the  taking 
of  the  English  post,  Queenstown,  on  the  opposite  shore  of  the  river. 
The  design  was  an  able  one,  and  he  w*as  aided  in  carrying  it  out 
by  Lieutenant-colonel  Winfield  Scott,  a  brave  young  soldier,  who 
came  up  just  before  the  expedition  started.  Part  of  the  soldiers 
crossed  the  river  and  had  made  a  gallant  attack.  Success  seemed 
close  at  hand,  when  the  troops  still  remaining  on  the  American 
shore  refused  to  cross,  and  the  attacking  party,  without  reinforce¬ 
ments,  were  cut  to  pieces  and  the  remnant  captured.  Young  Scott 
fought  like  a  tiger,  and  only  when  overpowered  by  numbers,  he  gave 
up  his  sword  and  was  taken  prisoner.  He  was  a  tall,  elegant  figure, 
and  a  proper  mark  for  bullets.  After  he  was  taken,  the  Indians  sur¬ 
rounded  him,  curious  to  examine  his  person,  to  see  if  it  were  possible 
that  none  of  the  shots  they  had  fired  at  him  had  left  their  mark. 

Such  were  some  of  our  defeats  on  the  borders  of  Canada.  In  the 
West,  General  William  Henry  Harrison  was  meeting  the  fierce  onsets 
of  the  Indians  with  courage,  but  with  doubtful  success.  The  Fed¬ 
eralists,  opposed  to  war,  welcomed  every  defeat  with  hardly  less  joy 

21 


320 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


than  the  British.  We  should  have  been  once  more  at  the  mercy  of 
England,  if  our  victories  elsewhere  had  not  overpowered  these  de¬ 
feats  and  kept  hope  alive  in  the  hearts  of  the  Republicans.  Let  me 
tell  you  of  the  naval  battles  that  had  been  fought  and  won  while 
Hull’s  surrender,  the  Chicago  massacre,  and  the  defeat  at  Niagara, 
had  been  damping  the  spirits  of  the  army. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

VICTORIES  ON  THE  OCEAN. 

The  Constitution  beats  the  Guerriere.  —  The  Wasp  on  a  Frolic.  —  Decatur  wins  Fre*h  Laurels. 
—  Flag  of  the  Macedonian  presented  to  Mrs.  Madison.  —  Bainbridge  and  the  Constitution.  — 
British  Anger  at  Defeat. 

About  a  fortnight  before  the  surrender  of  General  William  Hull 
at  Detroit,  a  vessel  commanded  by  Captain  Isaac  Hull,  a  nephew  of 
the  over-cautious  general,  set  sail  from  Boston  harbor.  His  ship 
was  the  frigate  Constitution ,  carrying  fifty-four  guns,  and  manned 
by  as  brave  a  body  of  men  as  ever  handled  gunpowder.  They 
sailed  north  and  cruised  about  near  the  entrance  to  the  Gtdf  of  St. 
Lawrence,  until  one  August  evening,  about  six  o’clock,  they  saw  the 
British  frigate  Gruerriere  not  far  away,  making  signals  that  she  was 
ready  to  fight  them.  Captain  Hull  immediately  put  on  all  sail  to 
bring  his  vessel  close  to  the  Englishman. 

“  Is  that  an  American  ship  ?  ”  asked  the  English  Captain  Dacres, 
who  had  been  watching  her  approach  through  his  glass. 

“  Yes,  sir,  I  am  sure  she  shows  the  American  flag,”  answered  the 
officer  to  whom  Dacres  had  spoken. 

“  I  can  hardly  believe  that  an  American  ship  would  dare  ap¬ 
proach  with  so  much  boldness,”  said  Dacres,  still  looking  doubtfully 
through  his  glass. 

In  a  few  minutes  his  doubts  were  resolved.  The  Constitution 
drew  near,  till  he  could  see  plainly  the  stars  and  stripes  at  her 
mast-head.  As  soon  as  she  approached,  the  Gruerriere  opened  upon 
her  with  a  terrible  volley  from  all  the  guns  on  one  side.  Not  a 
single  gun  was  discharged  on  board  the  American  ship.  Another 
broadside  from  the  Gruerriere  poured  into  the  Constitution ,  which 
still  came  on  as  silent  as  death.  Hull’s  officers  began  to  murmur, 
and  asked  him  to  let  them  return  the  fire. 


VICTORIES  ON  THE  OCEAN. 


321 


“  Not  yet,”  answered  he,  decidedly. 

Another  officer  came  to  report  that  a  man  had  been  killed  at  his 
gun,  which  had  not  yet  fired  one  shot  at  the  enemy. 

“  Shall  we  open  upon  them,  captain  ?  ”  asked  the  officer. 

“  Not  quite  yet,”  returned  Hull,  walking  up  and  down  the  deck 
in  intense  excitement. 

Nearer  and  near  drew  the  vessels  together  till  they  stood  almost 
yard-arm  to  yard-arm.  Then,  with  tremendous  energy,  the  Ameri¬ 
can  opened  her  guns,  and  over  the  deck  of  the  Gruerriere  belched 
a  fire  so  deadly  that  it  swept  it  almost  clean  of  men  and  officers, 
and  left  rivers  of  blood  pouring  in  its  track.  Never  was  a  fire  more 
terrible.  It  seemed  to  wrap  both  ships  in  a  garment  of  smoke  and 
flame,  and  when  it  subsided  a  little,  and  the  haze  of  the  conflict 
rolled  upward,  the  valiant  Gruerriere ,  with  two  masts  fallen  over¬ 
board,  her  sides  torn  with  balls,  lay  a  dismantled  hulk  at  the  mercy 
of  the  sea.  The  Constitution  filled  her  sails  and  retired  a  short  dis¬ 
tance  to  repair  her  rigging.  She  had  been  on  fire  once  during  the 
fight,  but  one  of  her  gallant  officers  had  put  out  the  flames  before 
the  vessel  was  injured.  When  she  had  put  herself  in  order,  she 
returned  to  the  side  of  the  Gruerriere.  The  English  flag  had  been 
shot  down  at  the  first  fire,  and  brave  Captain  Dacres  had  nailed  it 
firmly  to  the  mast.  It  was  now  cut  down,  and  the  stars  and  stripes 
unfurled  over  the  deck,  slippery  with  the  blood  of  the  carnage.  It 
was  useless  to  try  to  bring  the  Gruerriere  to  port.  She  was  a  hope¬ 
less  wreck.  Captain  Hull  took  his  prisoners  on  board  his  own  ship, 
and  set  fire  to  the  conquered  vessel.  She  burned  like  tinder,  light¬ 
ing  up  the  whole  sky  with  lurid  grandeur,  and  at  last,  exploding 
with  a  loud  roar,  sank  to  the  bottom  of  the  sea.  This  was  just 
three  days  after  Hull’s  surrender  at  Detroit,  and  such  a  victory  as 
this  did  much  to  reconcile  the  country  to  defeat  on  land. 

On  the  17th  of  October,  just  four  days  after  the  defeat  at  Niagara, 
where  Winfield  Scott  was  taken  prisoner,  a  sloop  of  war  named  the 
Wasp  was  out  in  the  Atlantic,  four  days’  sail  from  land.  Her  com¬ 
mander  was  Captain  Jones,  who  had  been  captured  at  Tripoli  on  the 
frigate  Philadelphia ,  and  been  twenty  months  a  prisoner  among 
Barbary  pirates.  He  bore  a  fortunate  name  in  naval  history,  for  it 
was  that  borne  by  John  Paul  Jones  who  commanded  the  Bon 
Homme  Richard  in  Revolutionary  days.  This  Captain  Jones  was 
not  related  to  John  Paul,  however,  except  by  the  kinship  of  brave 
deeds. 


822 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


One  Sunday  morning,  not  long  after  sunrise,  the  Wasp  fell  in  with 
the  English  war-sloop  Frolic ,  having  under  convoy  a  fleet  of  mer¬ 
chant  ships  which  she  was  guarding  on  their  way  home  from  the 
West  Indies.  The  Wasp  began  to  gather  herself  up  for  an  attack, 
and  taking  in  all  her  loose  canvas,  made  herself  taut  and  fit  for 
action.  The  Frolic  did  the  same,  although  she  had  just  weathered 
a  heavy  storm  near  the  Indies,  and  was  not  in  the  best  condition  for 
fighting.  It  had  been  rough  weather,  and  the  sea  rolled  heavily, 
breaking  against  the  ships,  and  making  even  the  oldest  sea-dogs  stag¬ 
ger  like  landsmen,  as  they  made  their  vessels  ready.  When  at  last 
word  was  given' on  both  sides  to  begin,  it  seemed  for  a  time  uncer¬ 
tain  which  would  come  off  conqueror.  At  the  first  onset  the  Wasp 
lost  mast  and  rigging,  and  was  pitched  wildly  about  on  the  rough 
sea.  But  swinging  round,  she  brought  her  side  against  the  bows  of 
the  Frolic ,  and  raked  her  from  stem  to  stern  with  a  fire  that  carried 
death  to  almost  every  man  on  deck.  The  crew  of  the  Wasp,  seeing 
themselves  so  near  their  enemy,  could  not  be  held  back,  but  swarmed 
over  the  side  of  their,  vessel,  boarding  the  Frolic  with  loud  cheers  of 
triumph.  On  her  deck  they  found  only  one  man  at  his  post,  the  man 
at  the  wheel,  who  stoutly  faced  death  there.  The  remaining  offi¬ 
cers,  most  of  them  wounded,  threw  down  their  swords  as  the  Amer¬ 
icans  came  on  board,  and  Lieutenant  Biddle  of  the  Wasp  himself 
cut  down  the  English  flag.  It  fluttered  to  the  deck,  and  lay  there, 
another  trophy  to  the  success  of  the  American  navy. 

The  Frolic  was  terribly  cut  up  by  the  fight.  As  they  rested  from 
the  battle,  Captain  Jones  saw  a  British  man-of-war  coming  in  sight. 
It  was  the  Poitiers ,  a  ship  much  larger  than  either  of  the  two  which 
had  just  been  engaged.  Jones’s  own  ship  was  dreadfully  battered, 
and  her  sails  riddled  with  holes  like  a  sieve.  There  was  nothing 
for  him  but  surrender,  and  the  evening  of  the  day  which  had  seen 
him  victor,  saw  him  conquered,  and  a  captive  on  the  enemy’s  ship. 

This  was  only  the  17th  of  October,  and  on  the  25th  another  vic¬ 
tory  roused  rejoicing  in  America.  This  time  it  was  Captain  Deca¬ 
tur  who  won  laurels  for  himself,  —  the  same  daring  officer  who 
sailed  into  the  harbor  of  Tripoli  in  the  Intrepid ,  and  burned  the 
Philadelphia  under  the  very  noses  of  the  enemy.  He  commanded 
the  ship  United  States ,  and  when  near  the  Azore  Islands  gave  chase 
to  the  British  frigate  Macedonian.  He  not  only  chased,  but  over¬ 
took  and  captured  her,  and  brought  her  as  his  prize  into  Newport 
harbor.  As  soon  as  he  reached  port,  Decatur  sent  his  lieutenant, 


VICTORIES  ON  THE  OCEAN. 


323 


young  Hamilton,  whose  father  was  secretary  of  war,  to  announce 
the  news  of  his  success  at  Washington.  Hamilton  reached  Wash¬ 
ington  late  in  the  evening,  and  found  everybody  had  gone  to  a  grand 
ball  given  in  honor  of  the  United  States  navy.  Without  waiting 
for  any  ceremony  of  toilet,  he  rushed  to  the  ball-room,  covered  with 
the  dust  of  travel,  and  told  the  good  news  to  the  president,  and  to 
his  father,  who  welcomed  his  son  with  pride,  as  a  participant  in  the 
battle.  The  tattered  flag  was  carried  into  the  ball-room,  and  pre¬ 
sented  to  Mrs.  Madison,  amid  the  cheers  of  the  company. 

One  more  naval  victory  I  must  relate  to  you,  and  then  for  the 
present  I  have  done.  This  was  another  triumph  of  the  good  ship 
Constitution ,  who  seems  to  have  had  more  than  her  share  of  honor. 
Hull  had  given  up  her  command  to  another  brave  officer,  Commo¬ 
dore  Bainbridge,  who  had  seen  good  service  at  sea  when  we  were  at 
war  with  Barbary  pirates.  He  sailed  the  Constitution  from  Boston 
to  the  West  India  Islands,  and  there  fell  in  with  his  British 
majesty’s  ship  Java ,  on  her  way  to  the  east.  She  was  well  manned, 
and  mounted  nearly  fifty  guns,  but  found  herself  no  match  for  the 
Constitution.  In  less  than  two  hours  after  the  firing  began,  she 
lowered  her  flag,  and  Bainbridge  went  on  board  a  conqueror.  On 
the  deck  lay  Captain  Lambert  of  the  Java ,  supported  in  the  arms 
of  his  officers,  the  blood  oozing  from  a  mortal  wound.  The  Ameri¬ 
can  captain  approached,  and  returned  his  sword  to  the  dying  man, 
who  had  sent  it#to  his  conqueror  in  token  of  surrender.  Bainbridge 
himself  had  two  wounds  in  the  leg,  but  refused  to  have  them  dressed 
till  all  was  over.  Like  the  Gruerriere,  the  Java  wras  a  wreck  past 
repair.  After  taking  out  her  wheel  to  fit  it  into  the  Constitution , 
whioh  had  been  badly  shattered  in  the  conflict,  the  hulk  of  the  con¬ 
quered  ship  was  set  on  fire. 

I  have  given  you  now  a  brief  account  of  four  naval  battles,  all  of 
which  took  place  in  1812,  the  first  year  of  the  war,  and  six  months 
after  hostilities  had  begun.  The  Americans  were  hardly  less  sur¬ 
prised  than  the  English  at  such  victories.  The  belief  that  an  Eng¬ 
lish  man-of-war  could  not  be  beaten,  had  been  the  ruling  idea  ever 
since  the  days  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  when  the  English  had  conquered 
the  great  Spanish  Armada.  Now,  to  be  beaten  by  a  parcel  of 
American  built  ships,  manned  by  raw  sailors  !  It  was  too  much  for 
English  dignity,  and  all  their  newspapers  growled  with  wounded 
vanity,  yet  owned  there  was  reason  to  fear  that  the  future  rule  of 
Britannia  on  the  seas  might  be  periled  by  this  upstart  nation,  —  a 
rebel  which  she  had  once  nursed  in  her  bosom. 


324 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


Another  cause  for  astonishment  to  the  English  was  the  rapidity 
with  which  the  Americans  worked  their  guns,  and  the  great  disparity 
between  the  American  and  British  killed  and  wounded.  In  the 
fight  between  the  Constitution  and  Gruerriere,  the  Americans  had 
seven  killed  and  seven  wounded  ;  the  British,  over  eighty  killed 
and  wounded.  In  the  capture  of  the  Macedonian ,  Decatur  lost  five 
men,  and  had  seven  wounded ;  the  British,  over  one  hundred  killed 
and  wounded.  In  each  battle  the  same  great  odds  prevailed.  The 
British  had  seen  the  wonderful  shooting  of  the  western  riflemen  in 
the  Revolutionary  War,  —  those  daring  fellows  in  buckskin  shirts 
and  leggings,  who  could  hit  the  middle  of  the  target  at  the  longest 
distance  every  time  they  fired  their  guns.  They  declared  now,  that 
companies  of  these  riflemen  were  stationed  on  the  American  ships 
to  pick  off  the  English  crew,  since  no  ship's  guns  could  fire  with  such 
aim.  It  was  fully  proved  in  these  battles  that  the  Americans  were 
superior  to  the  English  in  gunnery. 


CHAPTER  X. 

EVENTS  OF  1813. 

Bounty  on  American  Scalps.  —  The  Slaughter  at  Frenchtown.  —  The  Hornet  meets  the  Peacock. 

—  Lawrence  takes  command  of  the  Chesapeake.  —  The  Shannon  challenges  the  Chesapeake. 

—  Death  of  Lawrence.  —  “  Don’t  give  up  the  Ship.” 

No  British  commander  was  more  heartily  hated  by  the  Americans 
during  the  War  of  1812  than  General  Proctor,  who  commanded  the 
troops  on  the  borders  of  Michigan.  He  had  in  his  army  a  large 
body  of  Indian  allies,  and  the  dreadful  mode  of  warfare  which  they 
pursued  was  said  to  be  encouraged  by  Proctor.  American  scalps 
were  paid  for,  as  in  new  settlements  a  bounty  is  offered  for  the  heads 
of  wolves,  or  any  wild  animals  whose  ravages  are  dangerous.  Many 
horrible  stories  are  told  of  Proctor’s  insensibility  and  cruelty.  He 
is  accused  of  permitting  the  slaughter  of  the  Americans,  even  after 
they  had  surrendered  and  begged  for  quarter,  and  of  encouraging 
his  Indian  allies  in  their  frightful  massacres.  It  is  only  common 
charity  to  hope  that  these  accusations  are  not  all  true.  For  a  long 
time  the  slaughter  at  Frenchtown,  on  the  river  Raisin,  was  held  up 
as  one  of  the  bloodiest  deeds  of  all  Proctor’s  bloody  campaign. 
Frenchtown  was  a  settlement  built  on  both  sides  the  river  Raisin,  and 


EVENTS  OF  1813. 


325 


was  a  peaceful,  quiet  little  village,  until  the  horrors  of  war  came  to 
disturb  and  destroy  it.  As  soon  as  the  English  had  taken  Detroit, 
and  were  menacing  all  that  part  of  Michigan,  the  people  of  French- 
town  began  to  be  alarmed  for  their  safety.  They  sent  to  General 
Harrison’s  army,  which  was  quartered  in  northern  Ohio,  asking 
their  protection  from  Indian  slaughter.  A  party  of  Harrison’s 
troops  went  down,  met  the  British  near  Frenclitown,  drove  them 
away,  and  guarded  the  little  town.  In  the  mean  time  General 
Winchester,  one  of  Harrison’s  officers,  marched  to  their  aid  with 
another  body  of  men.  Before  he  had  joined  the  Americans  at 
Frenchtown,  Proctor  came  up  with  some  British  and  Indians,  sur¬ 
rounded  them,  and  took  Winchester  prisoner.  Proctor  worked  so 
on  Winchester’s  fears  for  the  safety  of  his  comrades  in  Frenchtown, 
that  he  induced  him  to  write  an  order  for  them  to  surrender  them¬ 
selves  to  the  British,  before  the  Indians  should  set  upon  them  and 
put  them  all  to  the  tomahawk.  The  troops  inside  the  town  reluct¬ 
antly  gave  in  to  Winchester's  commands,  only  stipulating  that  if 
they  yielded  themselves  up  as  prisoners,  their  wounded  men  in  the 
houses  of  the  settlers  should  be  well  taken  care  of.  Proctor  prom¬ 
ised  of  course,  and  then  went  away,  taking  with  him  his  large  body 
of  prisoners.  The  wounded  were  left  behind  to  be  ministered  to  by 
the  people  of  the  little  village. 

A  terrible  anxiety  hung  over  the  place  as  it  saw  its  protectors 
thus  led  away  as  prisoners  of  war.  They  feared  an  invasion  of  the 
savages  who  had  been  by  night  and  day  their  constant  dread. 
Their  fears  were  more  than  justified.  In  less  than  twenty-four 
hours  the  yelling  savages,  painted  in  their  most  hideous  manner, 
entered  the  houses  where  lay  the  wounded  Americans,  and  scalped 
them  with  the  barbarity  of  demons.  Some  they  killed  at  once,  and 
so  set  them  free  from  their  misery  ;  others  they  left  half  alive,  in 
torturing  agony.  At  the  last  they  set  fire  to  the  houses,  where  the 
wounded  lay,  and  burned  their  bodies  in  this  funereal  pile.  Some 
of  these  very  scalps  torn  from  the  heads  of  these  victims,  were  car¬ 
ried  to  the  British  head-quarters  as  trophies  of  their  faithfulness  to 
the  English  arms. 

In  this  massacre  on  the  Raisin  perished  some  of  the  noblest  sons 
of  Kentucky  —  young  men  of  birth  and  education.  It  roused  the 
anger  of  the  whole  Northwest,  and  crowds  of  new  recruits,  eager  to 
avenge  their  countrymen,  came  pouring  in  to  join  Harrison’s  army 
in  Ohio. 


326 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


If  you  look  on  the  map  and  trace  the  progress  of  the  campaign  in 
the  North ,  you  will  find  the  struggle  was  confined  to  the  borders  of 
Lake  Erie,  beginning  northwest  at  Detroit,  and  running  southward 
along  northern  Ohio  and  New  York,  till  it  ended  at  Sackett’s  Har¬ 
bor.  Harrison,  with  the  western  wing  of  the  army,  occupied  Fort 
Meigs,  on  the  Maumee  River,  and  General  Dearborn  commanded 
the  east  wing  resting  at  Sackett’s  Harbor.  All  the  winter  and 
spring  of  1812  there  was  hard  fighting  on  this  border  line,  and  many 
a  deed  of  heroism  made  a  bright  spot  in  the  midst  of  the  general 
darkness  and  horror  of  war. 

In  spite  of  the  bravery  and  caution  of  General  Harrison,  backed 
by  the  Kentucky  troops  eager  to  avenge  their  slaughtered  brethren ; 
in  spite  of  the  experience  of  General  Dearborn,  aided  by  the  brave 
young  Winfield  Scott,  the  northern  frontier  was  weak  and  poorly 
defended,  and  the  victories  which  had  thus  far  protected  us  from 
complete  ruin,  were  our  victories  on  the  ocean. 

In  January,  1813,  the  very  month  in  which  Proctor’s  Indians 
were  slaughtering  the  unprotected  people  in  Frenchtown,  our  ships 
in  the  Atlantic  were  seeking  for  new  enemies  to  conquer.  Captain 
James  Lawrence  commanded  the  Hornet ,  one  of  the  vessels  belong¬ 
ing  to  the  command  of  Commodore  Bainbridge,  which  was  separated 
from  its  fleet,  and  was  now  cruising  in  the  West  Indies  close  to  the 
small  island  of  San  Salvador.  Here  Lawrence  met  the  English 
ship  Peacock ,  which  came  up  to  give  battle.  The  Hornet  accepted 
the  challenge  with  great  alacrity,  and  buzzing  about  the  Peacock , 
showed  her  stings  with  such  effect,  that  in  fifteen  minutes  the  Eng¬ 
lish  ship  was  a  wreck. 

After  her  surrender  it  was  found  that  she  had  several  feet  of 
water  in  her  hold,  and  would  sink,  if  something  were  not  done  to 
save  her.  Captain  Lawrence  took  the  officers  and  crew  on  board 
his  own  ship,  except  a  dozen  men,  who  stayed  to  see  if  they  could 
not  save  the  vessel.  A  few  men  from  the  Hornet  went  on  board  to 
assist  in  calking  up  the  holes  in  the  injured  ship,  and  while  they 
were  thus  at  work  the  hulk  sank,  carrying  down  three  men  of  the 
Hornet's  crew,  and  nine  of  the  Peacock. 

The  generous  way  in  which  Lawrence  treated  his  prisoners,  won 
the  hearts  of  the  British,  while  his  bravery  won  the  praises  of  his 
countrymen.  His  name  was  set  beside  those  of  Jones,  Decatur, 
Hull,  and  Bainbridge. 

When  Lawrence  came  to  Boston  harbor  after  taking  the  Pea- 


EVENTS  OF  1813. 


327 


cocJc,  a  new  ship  was  assigned  to  him.  You  remember  the  Chesa¬ 
peake,  who  had  been  fired  into  by  the  Leopard  when  she  refused  to 
be  searched  for  English  seamen  ?  It  was  this  ship  which  now  fell 
to  Lawrence’s  command.  The  Chesapeake  had  borne  the  name  of 
an  “  unlucky  ship  ”  ever  since  the  day  when  the  first  blood  spilt  in 
this  war  had  stained  her  decks.  Nearly  all  the  sailors  in  the  navy 
had  a  good  deal  of  reluctance  to  ship  on  board  her.  With  the  usual 
superstition  of  sailors,  they  were  wont  to  say  that  “  sooner  or  later 
the  Chesapeake  would  come  to  a  bad  end.” 

Flushed  and  happy  from  his  recent  victory,  the  gallant  Lawrence 
took  command  of  her.  Just  as  he  was  ready  to  sail  out  of  Boston 
harbor,  a  politely  written  challenge  to  test  the  powers  of  their  ships 
in  battle,  came  from  Captain  Broke  of  the  British  ship  Shannon , 
which  lay  outside  the  harbor,  one  of  a  fleet  which  wTas  blockading 
the  coast  of  New  England.  Lawrence  accepted  the  challenge  and 
went  out  to  meet  his  foe. 

The  news  that  the  Chesapeake  and  Shannon  were  to  meet  in 
mortal  combat,  spread  like  wild-fire  round  the  coast.  On  the  high¬ 
lands  about  Boston  harbor,  in  Salem  and  Marblehead,  groups  of 
people,  some  with  glasses  and  some  without,  assembled  to  watch  the 
result.  I  wish  the  prophecy  of  the  sailors  had  failed,  and  I  was  able 
to  write  of  victory  for  the  unlucky  Chesapeake.  Instead,  I  must  tell 
you  that  in  fifteen  minutes  she  was  completely  disabled,  and  when 
boarded  by  the  British,  —  who  shouted  for  joy  at  this  victory,  coming 
after  so  many  defeats,  the  star  spangled  flag 
was  hauled  down  and  wrapped  round  the  body 
of  her  dead  commander.  For  brave  James 
Lawrence  was  dead.  Mortally  wounded  in  the 
first  of  the  battle,  he  was  carried  below,  crying 
in  death,  “  Don't  give  up  the  ship He  did  not 
survive  the  loss  of  his  vessel,  and  his  corse,  still 
enveloped  in  the  flag  he  loved  so  well,  was 
carried  to  Halifax  by  the  British,  and  buried 
with  all  the  honors  it  deserved. 


Lawrence. 


328 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

BATTLE  OF  LAKE  ERIE. 

Ship-building  oil  the  Lake.  —  A  Stage-coach  loaded  with  Sailors.  —  The  Look-out  at  Put-in  Bay. 
—  The  Rattle  begins.  —  Commodore  Perry’s  Ship  disabled.  —  He  rows  to  the  Niagara.— X ic- 
tory  on  Lake  Erie.  —  Battle  of  the  Thames. 

All  through  the  summer  of  1813  there  were  busy  times  in  the 
harbor  of  Erie,  Pennsylvania.  Several  gallant  vessels,  some  ready  to 
be  launched,  some  partly  completed,  others  merely  great  skeleton 
hulks  on  whose  sides  the  hammer  of  the  carpenter  made  cheery 
music,  were  gathered  in  the  quiet  harbor  of  Lake  Erie,  on  whose 
shores  the  town  of  Erie,  Pennsylvania,  is  built. 

Captain  Oliver  Perry,  a  young  naval  officer,  had  been  sent  there 
to  build  a  fleet  to  engage  with  the  British  squadron  which  held  the 
lake.  When  all  were  finished,  there  were  nine  ships  in  all  —  three 
brigs,  a  sloop,  and  five  schooners.  The  brig  which  was  to  be  Perry’s 
own  flag-ship,  he  named  the  Lawrence ,  in  honor  of  the  dead  hero 
who  had  fallen  on  the  Chesapeake. 

After  the  ships  were  done  and  lay  sound  and  stanch  in  the  harbor, 
there  were  no  men  to  work  her.  For  weeks  Perry  begged  for  men 
and  promised  the  country  victory  if  they  would  send  him  sailors. 
At  length  tardily  and  in  small  installments  they  came  in.  General 
Harrison  furnished  one  hundred  Kentucky  riflemen  from  his  army. 
Dressed  in  their  fringed  hunting  shirts,  and  leggings  of  deer-skins, 
they  made  a  picturesque  party  for  the  deck  of  a  man-of-war.  New 
England  also  sent  sailors.  From  Rhode  Island,  Captain  Perry’s  na¬ 
tive  State,  another  hundred  men  were  sent.  These  were  real  sailors, 
who  had  seen  service  on  the  Atlantic,  some  of  them  gray  old  sea- 
dogs  with  hands  horny  from  handling  tarred  ropes  in  ships  of  war  or 
commerce.  When  they  were  ready  to  be  sent  to  Lake  Erie  it  was 
found  that  they  could  not  march  on  foot  like  soldiers.  They  rolled 
about  on  their  legs  like  ships  in  a  gale,  and  knew  so  little  about 
military  order,  that  it  was  useless  to  attempt  to  march  them  thither. 
So  the  government  fitted  up  a  dozen  great  stage-coaches  in  Boston, 
with  four  horses  each,  and  in  these  they  were  taken  to  Lake  Erie. 
These  jolly  tars  decorated  their  coaches  with  flags  and  streamers, 
and  with  a  band  of  musicians  on  top,  rattled  through  the  country  to 
the  tunes  of  Yankee  Doodle  and  Hail  Columbia,  waking  the  huzzas 
of  the  people  as  they  drove  through  the  scattered  villages  from  Bos- 


BATTLE  OF  LAKE  ERIE.  329 

ton  to  Western  Pennsylvania.  They  were  the  merriest  set  of  fel¬ 
lows  who  ever  made  a  stage-coach  journey. 

When  Perry  got  his  ships  all  manned,  he  had  only  one  more  wish. 
It  was  to  meet  his  enemy  ;  and  for  a  month  it  seemed  as  if  every 
one  of  their  ships  had  been  sunk  under  Erie’s  waters.  Day  after 
day  Perry  watched  in  vain  for  a  sail  from  his  covert  in  Put-in  Bay  : 
and  day  after  day  no  sail  appeared. 

One  pleasant  morning,  the  10th  of  September,  the  cry  “  Sail  ho  !  ” 
resounded  from  the  mast-head  of  his  vessel.  Word  that  the  Eng:- 
lisli  fleet  were  coming,  spread  from  ship  to  ship.  Every  officer  felt 
his  pulses  beat  eagerly  ;  every  man  shared  his  officer’s  pride  in  the 
ship,  and  his  desire  to  do  his  best  in  the  coming  battle. 

By  ten  o’clock  that  day  six  English  ships  hove  to  and  lay  in  a 
compact  line,  waiting  the  approach  of  the  Americans. 

Perry  had  nine  ships,  the  British  only  six ;  but  the  Americans 
carried  only  fifty-four  guns,  the  British  sixty-three.  In  close  en¬ 
counter  the  Americans  would  have  the  advantage  ;  at  a  long  range 
the  English  guns  could  do  the  deadliest  work.  This  decided  Perry 
to  approach  quickly,  and  save  his  fire  till  he  was  close  to  the  enemy. 
But  before  giving  the  order  to  draw  near,  he  brought  from  his  cabin 
a  simple  banner  of  blue  cloth  inscribed  with  these  words  in  white 
letters,  “  Don’t  give  up  the  ship.'”  “  Boys,”  he  said,  holding  aloft 
the  pennant,  so  that  all  might  read  it,  “  these  are  the  dying  words 
of  the  brave  Lawrence.  Shall  I  hoist  this  banner  ?  ” 

“  Aye,  aye,  sir !  ”  shouted  the  crew  with  a  will,  and  such  a  cheer 
went  up  on  board  the  Lawrence ,  returned  by  the  men  on  all  the 
other  ships,  that  it  woke  the  echoes  on  shore,  and  was  sent  resound¬ 
ing  back  to  the  ears  of  the  waiting  Englishmen. 

The  command  was  given  to  advance,  and  on  went  the  Laivrence 
with  the  blue  banner  aloft.  Barclay,  the  English  commander,  was 
on  board  the  Detroit ,  the  largest  and  best  vessel  of  his  squadron. 
He  leveled  his  fire  at  the  Laivrence  as  she  came  grandly  on.  True 
to  his  resolution  not  to  fire  till  he  was  close  at  hand,  Perry  kept 
his  guns  quiet  till  within  short  range.  Then  he  opened  fire,  and 
all  the  ships  of  the  two  lines  engaged.  It  was  a  sight  terrible 
and  grand.  For  almost  three  hours  a  deadly  combat  waged,  filling 
the  whole  air  with  smoke  and  flame,  with  the  roar  of  guns  and 
the  cries  of  wounded.  On  his  deck,  which  ran  blood  like  water, 
Perry  saw  man  after  man  go  down.  His  lieutenant,  wounded  in 
the  face  by  a  splinter  from  a  gun,  was  streaming  with  blood,  but 


330 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


stanchly  refused  to  go  below.  Every  man  worked  with  superhuman 
energy.  Perry’s  brother,  a  boy  of  twelve,  stood  beside  him  until  he 

was  struck  .by  a  splinter, 

and  carried  to  the  cabin. 

Of  one  hundred  men  who 
stood  erect  in  the  fullness 
of  manly  strength  and  vigor 
on  that  morning,  only  eight¬ 
een  remained  standing  on 
the  deck.  The  good  ship 
Lawrence ,  too,  was  in  as 

bad  plight  as  her  crew. 

With  shattered  masts,  rag¬ 
ged  sails,  and  every  gun 
silenced,  she  lay  a  battered 
hulk  at  the  mercy  of  the 
enemy. 

In  this  emergency  Perry 
saw  the  Niagara ,  the  sec¬ 
ond  ship  in  his  fleet,  appar¬ 
ently  fresh  and  uninjured. 
He  immediately  ordered  a 
boat  to  be  lowered,  and  wrapping  himself  in  his  banner,  which  had 
streamed  abroad  through  all  the  conflict,  he  leaped  into  the  boat 
and  ordered  four  of  his  crew  to  row  him  to  the  Niagara. 

As  the  boat  sped  over  the  waves,  the  guns  of  the  Detroit  sent 
discharge  after  discharge  at  the  tiny  craft.  Standing  upright  in 
the  boat,  Perry  furnished  a  shining  mark  for  their  shot.  The  balls 
cut  the  waters  on  every  side,  but  the  boat  was  untouched,  and  on 
reaching  the  Niagara  Perry  climbed  rapidly  up  her  sides,  and  trod 
the  deck  of  a  ship  fresh,  untired,  and  ready  for  action.  With  tre¬ 
mendous  energy  the  fight  was  renewed.  The  Niagara  broke  the 
line  of  the  enemy,  raked  her  two  foremost  ships  with  terrible  destruc¬ 
tion,  and  in  fifteen  minutes  from  the  time  Perry  stepped  on  board 
her,  four  English  ships  had  struck  their  colors,  and  a  white  flag  was 
flying  from  their  bows.  The  two  smaller  ships  of  the  squadron 
showed  their  heels  in  an  attempt  to  escape,  but  two  of  the  Ameri¬ 
can  schooners  gave  chase  and  soon  brought  them  back  as  prisoners. 

It  was  a  sight  to  see  when  Perry  stood  on  the  deck  of  his  vessel, 
among  the  corpses  of  the  men  who  died  in  her  defense,  and  the 


(JO. 


BATTLE  OF  LAKE  ERIE. 


331 


English  officers  one  after  the  other  tendered  him  their  swords,  hilt 
foremost,  in  token  of  their  conquest.  He  refused  to  take  their 
swords,  and  treated  his  prisoners  with  such  generous  kindness  that 
Commander  Barclay  afterwards  declared,  “  Perry’s  humanity  alone 
should  have  immortalized  him.” 

General  Harrison  was  waiting  on  shore  with  eight  thousand  men, 
to  hear  the  result  of  Perry’s  battle.  As  soon  as  the  good  news 
reached  him,  he  marched  his  army  on  Detroit.  The  cruel  Proctor 
still  occupied  the  town  with  his  army.  His  Indian  ally,  Tecumseh, 
with  two  thousand  warriors,  was  with  him. 

Proctor,  too,  had  heard  of  the  defeat  of  Barclay’s  squadron,  and 
when  Harrison’s  approach  was  made  known,  fled  with  all  possible 
haste.  First,  however,  he  set  fire  to  all  the  stores  in  Detroit  that 
could  be  of  any  service  to  the  Americans.  Then  he  went  with  all 
speed  up  the  banks  of  the  Thames  River  in  Canada.  Harrison 
reached  Detroit  and  found  the  city  deserted,  and  the  smoking  embers 
of  the  burnt  store-houses  which  the  enemy  had  left.  He  was  joined 
here  by  a  thousand  mounted  men  under  Colonel  Richard  M.  John¬ 
son  of  Kentucky.  Without  waiting  to  rest,  he  pushed  on  in  pursuit 
of  Proctor  and  Tecumseh. 

He  overtook  the  enemy  on  the  evening  of  October  4th,  and  en¬ 
camped  on  the  Thames,  eighty  miles  from  Detroit.  Worn  out  with 
their  march,  the  tired  army  slept  like  children,  and  next  morning 
were  ready  for  battle.  Colonel  Johnson  with  his  mounted  Ken¬ 
tuckians  made  the  first  onset.  Their  battle-cry  was,  “  Remember 
the  River  Raisin,”  and  with  the  memory  of  their  dead  at  French- 
town,  murdered  through  Proctor’s  treachery,  they  spurred  their 
horses  on  in  a  tremendous  charge. 

“  The  English  strove  with  desperate  strength, 

Paused,  —  rallied,  —  staggered,  —  fled.” 

Proctor  ran  away  as  soon  as  the  tide  of  battle  turned  against  him. 
Tecumseh,  whose  name  ought  to  live  with  those  of  other  heroes  and 
patriots,  fought  bravely  till  he  fell  under  the  balls  which  rained 
their  iron  hail  all  around  him.  His  warriors,  seeing  their  leader 
killed,  uttered  a  yell  of  grief  and  dismay,  and  ran  wildly  from  the 
field.  Thus  ended  the  battle  of  the  Thames  in  complete  victory  for 
the  Americans. 


332 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

FRESH  VICTORIES  AND  DEFEATS. 

The  Battle  of  Chippewa.  —  Scott  at  Lundy’s  Lane.  — Admiral  Cockburn  sails  up  the  Potomac. 

—  Alarm  at  Washington.  —  The  Defense  at  Blagdensburg.  —  Invasion  of  Washington. — 

The  Dinner  at  the  White  House.  —  Baltimore  beseiged.  —  The  Star  Spangled  Banner. 

The  victory  of  Harrison  over  Proctor  and  Tecumseh  carried  the 
wave  of  war  eastward,  and  the  struggle  was  renewed  now  on  the 
borders  of  Lake  Ontario  and  the  Niagara  River.  General  Jacob 
Brown  was  commanding  in  this  region,  and  he  had  for  his  right  arm 
young  Winfield  Scott,  who  was  worth  a  dozen  ordinary  men  in 
courage  and  military  ability.  Brown  and  Scott  were  eager  to  invade 
Canada,  and  carry  the  war  into  the  enemy’s  country.  Just  before 
the  4th  of  July  they  crossed  the  Niagara,  and  took  Fort  Erie,  just 
opposite  Buffalo  on  the  Niagara  River.  There  they  heard  of  a 
body  of  the  British  encamped  upon  the  Chippewa  Creek  a  few  miles 
north,  and  went  rapidly  on,  eager  to  fight  on  the  anniversary  of  their 
country’s  independence.  The  British  leader  wondered  why  they 
were  so  hotly  pressed  by  the  Americans,  till  some  one  reminded  him 
what  day  it  was. 

“  Never  mind,  boys,”  said  Scott  to  his  troops,  when  they  failed 
to  force  the  English  to  battle  on  the  4th  ;  “we  will  make  a  new 
anniversary  to-morrow.” 

And  so  they  did.  On  the  5th  of  July  the  battle  of  Chippewa 
was  fought  and  won  by  the  Americans.  Scott  covered  himself  with 
glory  by  the  skill  and  bravery  which  he  showed  here.  After  this 
battle,  the  British  retreated  over  Chippewa  Creek.  Brown  prepared 
to  follow  them.  He  sent  Scott  with  1,200  men  towards  the  Niagara. 
The  British  were  in  a  narrow  road  leading  down  to  the  river, 
known  as  Lundy’s  Lane.  With  his  brave  twelve  hundred,  Scott 
came  suddenly  upon  their  force  of  2,000,  strongly  posted  in  this 
lane,  which  was  directly  in  his  line  of  march.  Without  hesitating, 
Scott  pushed  on.  It  was  sunset,  and  the  spray  from  the  great  Falls 
of  Niagara,  close  at  hand,  was  formed  into  myriads  of  rainbows  by 
the  rays  of  the  setting  sun.  As  Scott  advanced  through  the  floating 
mists,  his  tall  figure  was  surrounded  with  the  bright  halo  which  the 
spray  had  formed.  The  army  behind  joyfully  hailed  his  rainbow 
crowned  head  as  an  omen  of  victory.  From  sunset  until  midnight 
the  silent  sky  was  lit  up  by  the  lurid  blaze  of  cannon  ;  the  waning 


FRESH  VICTORIES  AND  DEFEATS. 


333 


moon  and  pale  stars  were  obscured  by  the  smoke  which  rose  in  dense 
columns  from  the  field.  Fighting  by  broad  daylight  is  horrible 
enough,  but  it  seems  as  if  night  added  a  deeper  horror  to  the  scenes 
of  war.  Almost  at  the  close  of  the  conflict,  after  two  horses  had 
been  shot  and  killed  under  him,  Scott  was  carried  away  wounded, 
crying  as  he  went,  “  Charge  again  !  Charge  once  more  !  ”  The 
Americans  had  taken  the  enemy's  cannon  and  had  driven  them  from 
the  field.  But  a  more  timid  commander  was  left  to  take  Scott’s 
place,  and  after  all  was  over  he  abandoned  the  ground  gained,  and 
led  his  men  back  to  encamp  on  Chippewa  Creek.  The  British  in¬ 
stantly  returned,  occupied  the  field,  and  claimed  the  victory. 

During  all  the  year  1813  a  fleet  of  British  ships  had  been  block¬ 
ading  our  coasts,  and  the  name  of  Admiral  Cockburn  who  com¬ 
manded  it  was  a  word  of  terror  in  every  town  and  village  on  the 
Atlantic  shore.  Again  and  again  his  ships  had  come  into  port, 
landed  a  band  of  soldiery,  who  burned  and  destroyed  wherever  they 
could  apply  the  torch. 

In  the  summer  of  1814  this  invading  fleet  planned  their  boldest 
enterprise.  Admiral  Cochrane  joined  them  on  the  shores  of  Vir¬ 
ginia  with  a  fresh  fleet  of  ships.  They  were  freighted  with  an  army 
of  4,000  men,  the  flower  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington's  troops.  Wel¬ 
lington  was  the  great  English  general  who  had  just  beaten  Napo¬ 
leon  Bonaparte  at  Waterloo,  and  his  army  was  supposed  to  be  un¬ 
conquerable.  The  whole  country  around  Virginia  was  thrown  into 
great  trouble  at  the  news  of  their  approach. 

They  entered  Chesapeake  Bay  and  sailed  up  the  Potomac  River. 
It  was  in  August,  and  all  the  country  was  green  and  beautiful. 
The  river  was  bordered  with  dense  forests  broken  here  and  there 
by  a  clearing,  where  the  plantation  of  some  wealthy  Virginian,  or 
the  smoke  of  a  little  cluster  of  houses,  showed  traces  of  human  habi¬ 
tation.  The  tall  trees  excited  the  admiration  of  the  British  officers, 
who  had  never  seen  forests  of  such  grandeur. 

About  fifty  miles  from  Washington  city  the  English  troops  were 
landed,  4,500  men  in  all,  with  sailors  to  drag  their  artillery.  And 
now  the  rumor  reached  Washington  that  the  enemy  were  marching 
on  to  destroy  the  city.  President  Madison,  by  virtue  of  his  office, 
was  the  commander-in-chief  of  the  army,  but  he  was  not  a  military 
man  by  training  or  instinct.  The  protection  of  Washington  was 
intrusted  to  General  Winder,  who  began  hurriedly  to  gather  troops 
for  its  defense. 


334 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


Meanwhile  the  British  were  steadily  approaching.  A  flotilla  of 
boats  and  barges  kept  up  the  Patuxent  River  abreast  of  the  Eng¬ 
lish  troops.  The  flotilla  was  commanded  by  Cockburn.  The  land 
troops  were  led  by  General  Ross,  an  Irish  officer  from  Wellington’s 
army. 

As  the  English  drew  nearer,  reports  of  their  numbers  kept  reach¬ 
ing  the  ears  of  the  Americans  in  Washington.  They  were  magni¬ 
fied  into  10,000  men,  in  splendid  fighting  order.  General  Winder 
had  raised  hastily  and  without  proper  preparation,  7,000  men,  and  a 
small  force  of  cavalry.  These  should  have  been  enough,  and  more 
than  enough,  to  overcome  all  the  British  force.  The  defense  was 
placed  at  Blagdensburg,  a  town  six  miles  from  the  capital,  through 
which  the  English  must  pass  to  invade  it. 

Three  days  after  their  landing,  the  English  came  upon  Blagdens¬ 
burg,  and  the  American  outposts  there.  All  the  morning  they  had 
been  marching  through  one  of  the  thick  forests,  cool  and  impene¬ 
trable  to  the  sun’s  rays.  About  noontide  they  came  out  into  a  road 
without  shade,  and  the  intense  heat  of  the  sun’s  rays,  pouring  with 
full  force  upon  them,  had  been  very  severe.  Many  had  fallen  under 
it,  unable  to  go  on.  When  the  English  came  in  sight  of  Blagdens¬ 
burg,  they  found  the  American  army  in  three  lines,  one  behind  the 
other,  within  the  distance  of  a  mile.  The  first  line  was  formed  on 
a  low  hill,  which  overlooked  a  bridge,  across  which  ran  the  direct 
road  to  Washington.  The  English  charged  across  the  bridge,  and 
were  driven  back  by  the  Americans.  A  second  charge  and  they 
were  over,  and  had  gained  another  step  on  their  journey. 

There  has  been  a  great  deal  said  about  the  battle  of  Blagdensburg, 
and  the  folly  of  the  country  in  allowing  the  British  to  get  so  far 
without  check.  It  certainly  seems,  when  we  look  at  the  matter,  as 
if  7,000  men,  even  if  part  of  them  were  undisciplined,  might  have 
kept  back  a  force  so  much  smaller.  But  the  Americans  had  heard 
very  exaggerated  reports  of  the  number  of  their  foes,  and  did  not  go 
into  battle  with  the  confidence  which  is  a  part  of  success.  After 
their  first  line  was  broken,  the  English  troops  easily  drove  back  the 
second  and  third  line,  and  in  less  than  four  hours  they  had  driven 
the  last  detachment  of  the  Americans  to  retreat  to  the  forests  where 
the  enemy  could  not  pursue  them.  By  eight  o’clock  that  evening 
the  invading  army  marched  into  our  national  capital. 

President  Madison  and  his  cabinet  had  been  on  the  field  of  bat¬ 
tle  during  the  day,  but  as  they  saw  the  certainty  of  their  defeat, 


Cockburn’s  Fleet  sailing  up  the  Potomac. 


■ 


FRESH  VICTORIES  AND  DEFEATS. 


33T 


they  rode  hurriedly  back  to  Washington  to  save  what  they  could. 
Mrs.  Madison  had  loaded  a  cart  with  her  valuables,  in  readiness  to 
depart.  Just  before  leaving  she  remembered  the  great  portrait  of 
Washington  which  hung  on  one  of  the  walls  of  the  presidential  man¬ 
sion.  The  frame  could  not  easily  be  taken  down  and  carried  away, 
and  the  energetic  lad}-  cut  the  canvas  from  its  frame,  and  rolling 
up  the  picture,  took  it  with  her  into  safety.  The  whole  party  fled 
across  the  Potomac,  and  sought  refuge  in  a  village  there  for  that 
night. 

When  the  English  officers  entered  the  White  House,  they  found 
there  an  excellent  dinner  which  had  been  prepared  for  the  president 
and  his  party.  The  table  was  spread  with  the  best  dishes,  table 
linen  and  plate,  the  wine  waiting  in  wine  coolers,  the  plates  in  plate 
warmers  before  the  dining-room  fire,  and  the  roast  meats  turning  on 
the  spit.  The  conquerors  sat  down  and  ate  with  very  good  appe¬ 
tites.  I  wish  it  had  made  them  better  natured,  but  their  first  move¬ 
ment  after  dinner  was  to  set  fire  to  all  the  public  buildings,  the 
Capitol,  President’s  House,  Arsenal,  Public  Library,  all  the  buildings 
belonging  to  government.  The  blaze  lit  up  the  whole  heavens  and 
turned  night  into  day  for  many  miles  around. 

During  the  night  a  terrible  storm  of  rain  and  hail  came  up,  and 
after  this  storm  had  somewhat  abated,  the  English,  who  had  begun 
to  fear  the  Americans  might  come  back  in  numbers  too  strong  for 
them,  marched  silently  and  rapidly  back  to  their  fleet,  embarked, 
and  put  back  to  Chesapeake  Bay.  Thus  ended  the  invasion  of 
Washington,  one  of  the  most  exciting  events  of  the  war.  The  Eng¬ 
lish  believed  it  a  great  victory,  but  as  Washington  was  only  a 
newly  built,  straggling,  unfurnished  city,  only  fourteen  years  before 
an  uncleared  spot  in  the  wilderness,  its  destruction  very  slightly 
affected  the  fortunes  of  the  country. 

The  English  fleet  next  sailed  up  into  Patapsco  River  to  Baltimore, 
and  attempted  to  take  that  city.  But  Baltimore  was  able  to  repulse 
their  attack,  and  send  them  away  in  mourning.  General  Ross,  their 
gallant  Irish  commander,  was  killed  in  the  attempt  to  take  the  city. 

During  the  attack  on  Baltimore  the  English  vessels  in  the  bay 
bombarded  Fort  McHenry,  which  guarded  the  approach  to  the  city 
by  water.  Just  before  the  firing  began,  on  the  night  of  the  14tli  of 
September,  a  volunteer  soldier,  named  Francis  Scott  Key,  had  gone 
on  board  one  of  the  vessels,  under  a  flag  of  truce,  to  urge  the  release 
of  some  American  prisoners  taken  at  Washington.  He  was  detained 


338 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


on  the  English  ship  during  the  bombardment.  At  midnight  the 
firing  ceased,  and  Key  waited  with  intense  anxiety  for  daylight,  to 
see  if  the  flag  still  floated  over  McHenry.  When  the  morning 
dawned,  it  was  still  flying  proudly  from  the  top  of  the  fort.  On 


Fort  McHenry. 


the  deck  of  that  ship  where  he  had  passed  a  night  of  sleepless  anx¬ 
iety,  Key  composed  the  song  of  “  The  Star  Spangled  Banner,”  since 
one  of  our  national  songs. 

“  Oh,  say,  can  you  see,  by  the  dawn’s  early  light, 

What  so  proudly  we  hailed  at  the  twilight’s  last  gleaming, 

Whose  broad  stripes  and  bright  stars,  through  the  perilous  fight, 
O’er  the  ramparts  we  watched,  were  so  gallantly  streaming  — 

And  the  rockets’  red  glare,  the  bombs  bursting  in  air, 

Gave  proof  through  the  night  that  our  flag  was  still  there. 

Oh,  say,  does  the  star  spangled  banner  yet  wave 
O’er  the  land  of  the  free,  and  the  home  of  the  brave?” 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

MACDONOUGH’S  VICTORY. 

“  Old  Ironsides.”  —  Macdonough  on  Lake  Champlain.  —  Fight  on  Lake  and  on  Shore.  —  Vic¬ 
tory  in  the  Fleet.  —  The  British  Defeat  at  Plattsburg. 

Our  good  ships  did  excellent  service  on  the  sea  all  this  year  of 
1814.  The  Constitution  was  always  a  “  lucky  ship,”  so  the  super¬ 
stitious  sailors  said,  and  got  the  title  of  “  Old  Ironsides,”  which  she 
has  borne  from  that  day.  Oue  of  our  poets  has  written  some  lines 
about  “Old  Ironsides,”  which  every  American  school-boy  knows. 


MACDONOUGH’S  VICTORY. 


339 


“  Aye,  tear  her  tattered  ensign  down, 
Long  has  it  waved  on  hisrh, 

And  many  an  eye  has  danced  to  see 
That  banner  in  the  sky.” 


The  chief  naval  battle  of  this  year  was  the  battle  of  Lake  Cham¬ 
plain.  During  the  whole  spring  and  summer  the  British  were  threat¬ 
ening  a  descent  upon  New  York  from  Lake  Champlain.  To  gain  the 
whole  control  of  the  lake  would  give  them  almost  unlimited  power 
over  all  that  region,  divide  Vermont  from  New  York,  and  perhaps 
end  by  dividing  New  York  and  New  England.  General  Macomb 
commanded  our  army,  encamped  at  Plattsburg  on  the  shores  of 
Champlain.  He  had  only  about  3,000  men,  when  news  reached 
him  that  General  Prevost,  with  an  army  of  12,000,  was  pre¬ 
paring  to  march  down  upon  him.  He  immediately  called  upon 
Vermont  to  send  men  to  his  aid,  and  from  the  Green  Mountain 
State,  the  home  of  Ethan  Allen  and  Seth  Warner,  volunteers  came 
in  crowds  to  his  stand¬ 
ard.  Bidding  hasty 
farewells  to  their  fami¬ 
lies  and  homes,  these 
gallant  sons  of  Vermont 
hastened  to  the  stand¬ 
ard  of  Macomb.  On 
the  lake,  Commodore 
Macdonougli,  with  a 
fleet  of  four  vessels  and 
ten  small  gunboats, 
was  waiting  to  meet 
the  English  fleet.  He 
lay  at  anchor  close  by 
those  shores  where  just 
two  hundred  years  be¬ 
fore  Samuel  Champlain 
had  frightened  away 
the  Indians  with  the 
first  volley  of  his  mus¬ 
kets.  Thus  for  weeks 
they  waited,  Macdon- 
ough  on  the  water,  Macomb  on  the  land,  for  the  approach  of  the 
enemy. 


340 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


It  was  the  11th  of  September  when  General  Prevost  approached 
Plattsburg  with  his  formidable  army,  to  engage  the  troops  of  Ma¬ 
comb,  many  of  them  raw  volunteers.  On  the  same  morning  —  it 
was  a  lovely  Sunday,  day  of  peace  and  good-will  among  men  — 
the  fleet  of  Captain  Downie,  headed  by  his  flag-ship,  the  Confiance, 
was  seen  approaching  Macdonough.  Two  deadly  struggles  were 
close  at  hand. 

What  do  you  think  Macdonough  did  first?  His  ships  were  in 
order,  every  gun  ready  for  action,  every  man  instructed  in  his  duty. 
All  that  had  been  taken  care  of  beforehand,  so  there  was  no  need 
of  hurry  or  loud  command.  He  called  all  his  men  on  deck,  and 
gathering  them  about  him,  read  a  few  spirited  verses  from  the  grand 
Psalms  of  David,  and  offered  up  a  brief  prayer  to  God  before  he 
plunged  into  battle.  That  done,  he  was  all  ready. 

The  fight  was  almost  another  Lake  Erie.  Macdonougli’s  ship 
was  the  Saratoga ,  and  as  she  carried  the  signal-flag  of  combat, 
against  her  the  hottest  fire  was  directed.  Twice  the  cry  went  up 
that  Macdonough  was  killed.  Twice  for  answer  he  sprang  to  his 
feet,  begrimed  with  dust  and  blood,  but  still  alive.  At  the  last, 
when  all  her  guns  were  silenced,  the  Saratoga  manoeuvred  to  turn 
about  and  present  her  other  broadside  to  the  Confiance ,  her  chief 
adversary.  The  Confiance  tried  the  same  manoeuvre.  This  meant 
victory  to  the  vessel  who  accomplished  it ;  defeat  to  the  one  who 
failed.  What  a  cheer  arose  from  the  lips  of  those  on  the  battered 
Saratoga ,  who  were  left  with  voice  enough  to  cheer,  when  her  hulk 
swung  slowly  round,  and  her  uninjured  side  was  brought  to  bear 
on  the  Confiance.  The  latter  vessel  was  at  her  mercy.  Captain 
Downie,  the  English  commander,  lay  dead  upon  her  deck  ;  the  other 
American  ships  were  following  up  the  victory  gained  by  their  leader, 
and  after  two  hours  and  a  half  of  most  desperate  conflict,  the  Brit¬ 
ish  flag  again  was  pulled  down,  and  the  star  spangled  banner  waved 
in  its  place. 

On  shore,  the  fight  had  also  been  going  on  as  fiercely  as  on  the 
lake.  The  Green  Mountain  Boys  had  done  well.  Yet  the  odds 
were  against  them.  Their  ranks  had  once  been  broken,  and  their 
leader  was  rallying  them  again,  when  a  horseman,  Avild  with  excite¬ 
ment,  rode  through  the  ranks,  proclaiming  Macdonough’s  victory. 
The  neAvs  Avas  like  neAv  Avine  to  the  blood.  The  army  felt  re¬ 
doubled  strength,  and  was  ready  to  charge  an  enemy  of  tAvice  its  size. 

General  Prevost  heard  the  news  at  the  same  moment.  As  de- 


THE  LAST  CAMPAIGN  OF  THE  WAR. 


341 


pressed  as  the  Americans  were  elated,  he  made  an  immediate 
retreat,  leaving  his  wounded  to  the  mercy  and  care  of  the  Ameri¬ 
cans.  These  men  lay  on  the  field  with  the  rain  falling  on  their  up¬ 
turned  faces,  mutely  asking  that  help  from  Heaven  which  their  com¬ 
rades  could  not  stop  to  give. 

Thus  one  day  saw  the  victorious  battles  of  Plattsburg  and  Lake 
Champlain,  a  day  long  to  be  remembered  in  our  country’s  history. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

THE  LAST  CAMPAIGN  OF  THE  WAR. 

Signs  of  Peace.  — Andrew  Jackson  at  New  Orleans.  — Organizes  Regiments  of  Black  Men.  — 

Preparations  for  a  Merry  Christmas  in  Camp.  — Barricades  of  Sugar  Hogsheads.  —  Battle 

of  New  Orleans.  —  The  Peace  Angel.  —  A  New  President  elected. 

Are  you  not  tired  of  war,  the  booming  of  cannon,  and  the  cries 
of  the  dying  ?  I  am,  and  shall  be  glad  when  all  this  is  over,  and 
we  have  smiling  peace  once  more.  Already  signs  of  it  begin  to  ap¬ 
pear  in  the  eastern  skies,  and  England  no  less  than  America  begins 
to  long  for  rest  and  quiet. 

I  will  take  you  to  only  one  more  battle-field,  and  then  we  may 
for  the  present  say  farewell  to  all  the  pomp  and  circumstance  of  war. 

In  the  South  and  Southwest  General  Andrew  Jackson  of  Ten¬ 
nessee,  the  same  tall,  awkward  looking  representative  who  first  ap¬ 
peared  on  the  part  of  his  State  in  Congress,  had  been  fighting  the 
Indians.  After  Tecumseh  visited  the  Cherokees,  Creeks,  and  Choc¬ 
taws  (all  tribes  of  the  Southwest  in  the  Mississippi  valley),  they 
had  leagued  with  the  British  to  harass  our  armies  in  the  South¬ 
west.  Harrison  had  done  brave  work  on  this  western  border,  but 
in  April,  1814,  retired  from  service,  and  left  Jackson  to  fill  his 
place.  At  the  close  of  the  year  Jackson  had  been  stationed  in  the 
town  of  Pensacola,  still  under  Spanish  rule,  to  prevent  the  French 
and  Spaniards  on  our  southern  coasts  from  giving  help  or  comfort  to 
the  enemy. 

While  he  was  there,  a  formidable  foe  was  all  ready  to  swoop  down 
upon  him. 

The  fleets  of  Admirals  Cochrane  and  Cockburn  had  been  rein¬ 
forced.  A  large  number  of  ships,  and  men,  enough  to  swell  their 
forces  to  eleven  or  twelve  thousand,  had  been  sent  from  England 


342 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


after  the  capture  of  Washington  by  the  British  army  and  their  re¬ 
pulse  at  Baltimore.  Sir  Edward  Pakenham,  who  had  been  with 
the  great  Wellington  in  Spain,  and  beaten  the  French  armies  there, 
was  to  be  the  commander  of  this  fresh  army.  And  their  design  now 
was  to  sail  silently  and  swiftly  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  get  the 
mouths  of  the  Mississippi  River.  They  had  all  the  Indians  in  the 
Mississippi  valley  on  their  side,  and  they  knew  there  were  many 
foreigners  in  Louisiana  who  cared  verv  little  for  the  United  States, 
and  would  help  very  little  in  her  defense.  Then  the  Spaniards  in 
Florida  were  more  than  half  their  friends.  With  all  these  things 
to  aid  them,  they  might  hope  to  hold  the  outlet  of  the  great  river, 
and  so  keep  the  United  States  from  using  the  Mississippi,  or  extend¬ 
ing  her  territory  beyond  its  banks.  So  certain  were  they  of  success 
that  one  of  their  officers  said,  “We  hear  that  we  have  only  to  show 
ourselves  before  New  Orleans,  and  the  city  will  fall  into  our  hands.” 
But  there  was  one  lion  in  their  way,  and  that  lion  was  General  An¬ 
drew  Jackson.  You  remember,  in  the  Revolutionary  War,  when  he 
was  taken  prisoner,  he  had  been  knocked  down  for  refusing  to  clean 
the  boots  of  an  English  officer  ?  What  he  had  seen  and  suffered  in 
those  old  days  in  South  Carolina  had  filled  him  with  an  intense  and 
life-long  hatred  of  the  English.  There  were  few  generals  in  the 
American  army  better  fitted  to  oppose  the  English  plans  against 
New  Orleans. 

He  was  in  Pensacola  keeping  a  wary  eye  on  the  Spaniards,  when 
an  urgent  entreaty  was  sent  that  he  would  come  at  once  to  New 
Orleans.  The  British  were  coming  down  upon  them.  There  was 
no  time  to  lose. 

He  hastened  thither  at  once,  found  everybody  frightened,  and 
nothing  ready  for  defense.  If  the  English  had  arrived  before  Jack- 
son  came  there,  they  might  have  had  New  Orleans. 

Jackson  went  to  work.  He  put  a  musket  into  the  hands  of  every 
man  who  could  carry  one.  He  formed  regiments  of  black  men,  who 
had  not  before  been  allowed  to  serve  in  the  war,  although  half  the 
population  of  the  city  were  colored.  If  a  man  came  to  complain 
that  he  feared  the  English  were  coming,  and  would  lay  his  planta¬ 
tion  waste,  “  Here,  take  this  musket,  go  into  the  ranks,  and  help 
defend  your  plantation,”  answered  the  indefatigable  Jackson.  He 
overlooked  in  person  all  the  forts  guarding  the  approach  to  the  city, 
and  put  them  in  the  best  order  he  could  on  so  short  notice.  Then 
he  turned  his  attention  to  the  shipping.  In  Lake  Ponchartrain, 


THE  LAST  CAMPAIGN  OF  THE  WAR. 


343 


and  Lake  Borgne  there  were  half  a  dozen  gun-boats.  A  few  boats 
and  barges,  and  two  ships,  the  Carolina  and  the  Louisiana ,  lay  in 
the  river.  This  was  all  the  naval  force  in  the  Territory  to  oppose 
a  fleet  of  over  fifty  ships,  with  barges  to  match,  in  which  the  sol¬ 
diers  could  be  sent  up  rivers  impassable  to  larger  vessels. 

His  first  preparations  were  hardly  made  when  news  came  that  a 
great  flotilla  of  barges  had  entered  Lake  Borgne  and  captured  the 
American  boats  there.  From  the  lake  the  flotilla  entered  a  little 
stream  which  wound  towards  the  city,  and  sailing  up  until  it  was 
within  nine  miles  of  New  Orleans,  landed  2,000  men  on  its  banks. 

Jackson  was  still  at  work  in  the  city,  inspiring  hope  and  patriot¬ 
ism  there.  General  Coffee  had  joined  him  from  Pensacola  with 
nearly  1,400  men ;  General  Carroll,  with  a  company  of  sharp-shoot¬ 
ing  Tennesseeans,  had  also  arrived.  When  news  reached  Jackson, 
through  his  trusty  spies,  of  the  landing  of  the  soldiers,  his  army  was 
already  distributed  and  instructions  given. 

The  British,  encamped  on  a  flat  strip  of  land  lying  between  the 
levee  which  held  back  the  river  on  one  side,  and  an  impassable  cy¬ 
press  swamp  on  the  other,  were  confident  of  success.  They  biv¬ 
ouacked  about,  making  their  preparation  for  a  merry  Christmas, 
unconscious  of  any  special  need  for  alarm.  On  the  evening  of  the 
23d  of  December,  the  day  of  their  landing,  they  were  quietly  eating 
their  suppers,  reclining  at  ease  on  the  grass  or  inside  the  tents,  when 
an  armed  vessel  appeared  on  the  creek  or  bayou.  As  she  rode  by  in 
the  stream  so  narrow  that  she  almost  grazed  the  shore,  a  voice,  so 
distinct  that  officers  and  men  heard  the  words,  cried  aloud,  “Now 
boys,  give  them  one  for  the  honor  of  America,”  and  on  the  moment 
a  volley  of  grape  tore  through  the  camp  carrying  death  and  confu¬ 
sion  into  their  midst.  It  was  the  ship  Carolina ,  one  of  the  only  two 
available  vessels  in  Jackson’s  hands.  The  guns  from  the  ship  were 
the  signals  of  attack.  The  Americans  were  marching  on  their  foe. 
Drums  beat  to  arms,  and  the  British  had  hardly  time  to  form  before 
they  were  almost  surrounded.  It  was  now  dark,  and  they  fought 
hand  to  hand  without  seeing  each  other’s  faces.  At  last  the  British 
took  shelter  behind  the  levee  on  their  left,  hostilities  were  for  the 
time  suspended,  and  the  night  was  quiet  except  for  the  cries  of  the 
wounded  and  dying. 

Christmas  day  came  and  passed.  Not  a  merry  Christmas  for 
either  army.  The  Americans  were  busy  building  a  barricade  to 
reach  from  the  river  to  the  cypress  swamps,  which  should  keep  the 


344 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


enemy  from  New  Orleans.  For  nearly  a  week  they  worked  like 
ants  on  an  ant-hill,  making  their  defenses  high  and  strong — piling 
up  bales  of  cotton,  with  trees,  earth,  and  whatever  else  would  serve 

to  make  it  sure.  The  British 
had  found  a  sugar  warehouse, 
and  had  constructed  some 
costly  defenses  of  the  hogs¬ 
heads  filled  with  sugar,  behind 
which  they  worked  their  can¬ 
non.  On  the  28th  of  Decem¬ 
ber  the  foe  again  attacked  the 
American  line  without  result. 
Almost  daily  for  a  week  there  was  skirmishing  between  the  lines. 
But  on  the  morning  of  the  8th  of  January  the  grand  attack  came. 

It  was  led  by  Sir  Edward  Pakenham  in  person,  and  the  attack¬ 
ing  party  was  composed  of  the  very  flower  of  the  British  army. 
They  marched  on,  furnished  with  scaling  ladders,  with  which  they 
meant  to  scale  the  formidable  redoubt  which  Jackson’s  army  had 
erected  between  them  and  New  Orleans.  But  the  Tennessee  and 
Kentucky  sharp-shooters  picked  off  a  man  every  time  they  fired, 
and  before  their  unfailing  rifles  the  British  ranks  grew  thinner  and 
thinner.  Pakenham,  invincible  in  Spain,  was  killed  while  he  was 
cheering  on  his  storming  party,  and  fell  back  dead  in  the  arms  of 
one  of  his  officers.  The  redoubt  could  not  be  taken  even  by  the 
troops  of  Wellington,  and  leaving  over  2,000  men  killed  and 
wounded  on  the  field,  the  British  withdrew  to  their  boats,  re-em¬ 
barked,  and  went  to  rejoin  the  fleet.  Jackson  had  lost  only  a  hand¬ 
ful  of  his  men.  His  whole  loss  in  the  siege  had  been  only  a  little 
more  than  three  hundred.  Thus  ended  the  battle  of  New  Orleans, 
the  last  bloodshed  in  the  War  of  1812. 

The  angel  of  peace  was  already  close  at  hand.  On  the  11th  of 
February  a  vessel  brought  the  glad  news  into  New  York  harbor. 
A  day  and  a  half  later  it  was  known  in  Boston.  Couriers,  sent 
with  all  the  speed  that  horses  could  travel,  carried  the  good  tidings 
from  State  to  State,  from  village  to  village,  and  peace  was  celebrated 
by  bonfires  and  bell-ringing  all  over  the  land. 

The  remaining  events  of  Madison’s  administration  I  can  tell  you 
in  a  few  words.  We  were  no  sooner  at  peace  with  England,  than 
Algiers,  one  of  the  pirate  fraternity  of  states,  made  war  with  Amer¬ 
ica.  Decatur,  the  hero  of  so  many  adventures,  commanded  the 


MONROE  AND  ADAMS. 


345 


fleet  sent  to  bring  the  Dey  of  Algiers  to  terms.  It  did  not  take 
him  long  to  settle  the  matter.  In  a  week  after  he  appeared  with  his 
fleet  in  the  Mediterranean,  the  frightened  dey  sent  to  beg  for  a 
treaty.  Decatur  made  him  give  up  all  the  Americans  he  had  taken 
for  slaves,  pay  for  the  ships  he  had  captured,  and  promise  to  ask  for 
no  more  “  presents  ”  from  American  consuls.  The  dey  paid  a  good 
round  sum,  gave  up  his  American  prisoners,  and  some  Danes, 
whom  Decatur  took  as  part  payment  for  his  debt,  and  promised  to 
behave  in  the  future. 

Then  the  country  made  a  great  treaty  with  the  Indians,  and 
buried  a  hatchet  in  token  of  continual  peace.  Indiana ,  one  of  the 
new  Territories,  which  had  been  growing  fast  in  spite  of  war,  was 
made  a  State,  and  Madison’s  eight  years  having  expired,  James  Mon¬ 
roe,  his  successor,  also  a  Republican  and  a  follower  of  Jefferson,  took 
his  seat  in  the  president’s  chair  on  the  4th  of  March,  1817. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

MONROE  AND  ADAMS. 

More  Pirates.  —  War  with  Indians.  —  Lafayette’s  Visit. — Five  New  States. — Monroe  Doc¬ 
trine. —  Another  President  from  Massachusetts. — Death  of  Two  Patriots.  —  Massachusetts 
and  Virginia.  —  A  Democratic  President. 

James  Monroe  was  the  fifth  president  of  the  United  States,  and 
the  fourth  who  was  born  in  Virginia.  He  had  begun  his  career  as 
a  lieutenant  in  the  Revolutionary  War,  and  was  wounded  at  the 
battle  of  Trenton.  From  the  time  of  Washington’s  administration 
he  had  served  his  country  in  several  offices  at  home  and  abroad. 
When  he  was  nominated  there  was  very  little  opposition,  and  he 
made  his  inaugural  address  in  Washington  to  the  largest  number  of 
people  who  had  ever  gathered  in  the  capital  to  see  the  newly  made 
president  take  his  seat. 

Mr.  Monroe  was  president  for  eight  years,  as  Washington,  Madi¬ 
son,  and  Jefferson  had  been.  His  administration  was  a  quiet  one, 
and  few  important  events  happened. 

There  were  troublesome  pirates  —  not  the  Barbary  pirates  this 
time  —  but  some  water-thieves  who  infested  the  ports  of  the  West 
Indies  and  waylaid  our  ships  there.  Brave  Oliver  Perry,  hero  of 
Lake  Erie,  went  down  to  scatter  them,  but  was  taken  with  yellow 
fever  and  died  there.  So  we  were  obliged  to  subdue  the  pirates 
without  help  from  him. 


846 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


The  Florida  Indians,  known  as  Seminoles,  also  broke  out  in  in¬ 
surrection.  We  can  but  feel  a  great  deal  of  sympathy  with  the 
Indian  tribes,  when  we  consider  how  much  reason  they  had  to  dread 


the  growth  of  the  white  man’s  power.  But  our  sympathy  is  de¬ 
stroyed  almost  as  soon  as  it  arises  by  the  accounts  we  read  of  their 
barbarous  warfare  and  the  cruel  treatment  of  the  white  people  who 
fell  into  their  hands.  Massacres  of  women  and  children  by  these 
relentless  foes  began  to  reach  the  ears  of  government,  and  General 
Andrew  Jackson  was  sent  to  subdue  them. 

Jackson  was  living  quietly  at  his  home,  “  The  Hermitage,”  in 
Tennessee,  when  the  order  came  for  him  to  proceed  against  the 
Seminoles.  He  raised  two  regiments  of  sharp-shooters  in  his  native 
State,  and  marching  to  Florida,  made  quick  work  of  the  matter. 
Jackson  never  deliberated  long  upon  what  he  thought  a  military  ne¬ 
cessity.  If  he  caught  a  man,  white  or  Indian,  who  was  stirring  up 
sedition  against  the  government,  he  hung  him.  Those  he  did  not 
hang,  he  shot.  In  that  way  lie  disposed  of  all  offenders  rapidly,  and 
soon  made  it  more  quiet  in  the  Indian  country.  Soon  after  this,  in 
the  year  1821,  Spain  gave  Florida  up  to  the  United  States,  in  pay- 


MONROE  AND  ADAMS. 


34T 


inent  of  a  claim  we  held  against  her.  Thus  the  Territory  of  Florida, 
with  its  old  Spanish  settlements,  and  the  town  of  St.  Augustine,  the 
most  ancient  on  the  continent,  became  our  property.  General  Jack- 
son  was  made  governor  of  the  newly  acquired  dominions,  and  went 
to  live  there  for  a  time  away  from  his  Hermitage  in  Tennessee. 

One  of  the  pleasantest  things  that  happened  in  Monroe’s  adminis¬ 
tration  was  the  visit  of  Lafayette  to  America  in  the  year  1824. 
This  noble  Frenchman,  only  a  youth  of  nineteen  when  he  came  to 
serve  in  our  armies,  was  now  a  veteran  of  sixty-seven.  He  had 
fought  for  liberty  in  France,  as  well  as  for  liberty  in  America,  and 
now  visited  us  to  see  the  result  of  the  experiment  of  self-government 
in  our  nation.  His  journey  through  this  country  was  that  of  a  man 
whom  the  whole  people  delighted  to  honor.  Every  town  and  city 
turned  out  in  gala  dress,  its  maidens  in  white,  its  children  crowned 
with  flowers,  scattering  flowers  before  the  nation’s  guest. 

Verdant  arches  were  held  aloft  that  he  might  ride  beneath  them; 
fire-works  blazed  in  his  honor ;  huzzas  rent  the  air.  All  over  the 
land,  wherever  he  went,  the  hearts  of  the  people  met  him  in  a  hearty 
burst  of  welcome.  Never  was  welcome  more  sincere  or  honors  more 
worthily  bestowed.  If  America  had  forgotten  Lafayette  she  would 
have  been  an  ungrateful  country  who  proved  herself  unworthy  the 
aid  her  noble  champion  had  given. 

One  of  Lafayette’s  journeys  was  made  to  the  tomb  of  Washing¬ 
ton,  the  commander-in-chief  he  had  revered,  the  friend  he  had  loved 
like  a  son. 

On  his  return  to  France  the  United  States  fitted  up  a  ship  to  bear 
him  home.  It  was  named  the  Brandywine ,  in  remembrance  of  the 
battle  where  he  had  received  a  wound  in  fighting  for  the  liberty  of 
America.  Thus  we  bade  farewell  to  Lafayette,  whose  conduct  to 
America,  from  first  to  last,  was  that  of  the  most  disinterested  friend¬ 
ship —  a  friendship  rarely  found  in  the  annals  of  history. 

While  Monroe  was  president,  five  new  States  were  admitted. 
They  were  Mississippi,  Illinois,  Alabama,  Maine,  and  Missouri. 
These  show  how  the  country  was  growing.  We  had  now  a  Union 
of  twenty-four  States.  There  was  a  great  dispute  about  the  coming- 
in  of  Missouri,  which  I  will  tell  you  more  about  hereafter.  It  was 
finally  settled,  and  she  became  a  State  in  the  year  1821. 

When  Monroe  had  served  eight  years — the  country  all  the  time 
prosperous  and  peaceful — he  gave  the  chair  of  state  to  his  successor, 
John  Quincy  Adams,  and  retired  to  his  home  in  Virginia.  The 


348 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


great  feature  of  his  policy  is  called  the  “Monroe  Doctrine/’  of 
which  you  may  have  heard.  The  Monroe  doctrine  was  the  theory 
that  the  United  States  should  keep  out  of  all  the  wars  and  disputes 
arising  in  Europe,  and  that  the  quarrels  of  the  Old  World  should 
never  be  allowed  to  affect  affairs  in  the  New  World.  A  very  sensible 
doctrine  this  was  too,  and  one  that  has  served  us  well. 

Now  we  have  a  second  president  from  Massachusetts.  A  son  of 

old  John  Adams,  whom 
we  have  seen  also  in  the 
seat  this  new  president 
comes  forward  to  occupy. 
This  son  has  received  all 
the  advantages  of  educa¬ 
tion  and  travel  which  his 
father’s  position  had  given 
him,  and  is  a  dignified 
gentleman,  of  rather  stiff 
manners,  but  of  excellent 
judgment  and  pure  patri¬ 
otism. 

It  was  in  1825  that  he 
took  his  seat  in  the  capi- 
tol  as  chief  of  the  nation, 
with  Mr.  John  C.  Calhoun 
as  vice-president.  Like 
Monroe,  he  had  a  quiet, 
undisturbed  rule  for  four 
years.  In  these  times  of  peace  the  country  grew  constantly  in 
manufactures  and  commerce,  while  all  the  time  the  line  of  emigrant 
wagons  kept  bearing  westward  the  pioneer,  who  with  his  axe  and 
plow  was  making  the  wilderness  blossom  with  wheat  and  corn,  the 
true  riches  of  the  country. 

In  1826,  while  the  nation  was  celebrating  its  great  anniversary, 
the  4th  of  July,  two  of  its  historic  men  passed  away  from  earth. 
These  two  men  were  Thomas  Jefferson  and  John  Adams,  both  of 
whom  had  contributed  so  much  to  give  this  birth-day  to  America. 
Jefferson  died  at  his  home  in  Monticello.  Just  as  the  morning  of 
the  4th  was  ushered  in,  he  opened  his  eyes  (he  had  been  lying  & 
long  time  speechless),  and  murmured,  “  This  is  the  Fourth  of  July.” 

At  the  same  hour  John  Adams  was  lying  on  his  death-bed  in 


3  Q  *  cAc  i 


Pioneers  Traveling  West. 


MONROE  AND  ADAMS. 


351 


Quincy,  Massachusetts.  Jefferson  died  a  few  hours  earlier  than 
Adams.  Just  as  Adams  breathed  his  last,  he  said  with  animation, 
“Thomas  Jefferson  still  lives.”  Yet  at  that  moment  the  spirit  of 
his  fellow-patriot  awaited  him  on  the  other  side  of  the  River  of 
Death.  Amid  the  booming  of  cannon  and  the  festivities  of  the 
nation,  these  great  men  died.  They  had  lived  to  a  good  old  age. 
Adams  was  over  ninety,  Jefferson  eighty-three  years  old. 

The  question  arose  early  in  John  Quincy  Adams’s  administration, 
“  who  shall  be  next  president  of  the  United  States  ?  ”  Up  to  this 
time  either  a  native  of  Massachusetts  or  Virginia  had  filled  the 
chair  of  state.  And  not  only  was  the  presidential  office  shared 
between  these  two  States,  but  they  very  nearly  divided  the  opinions 
and  sympathies  of  the  whole  country.  If  you  have  read  carefully 
all  about  the  settlement  of  this  country,  you  have  seen  what  different 
people,  of  different  ideas,  habits,  and  social  customs,  make  up  these 
two  States  of  Massachusetts  and  Virginia.  You  have  seen  Massa¬ 
chusetts  (and  by  Massachusetts  we  mean  nearly  all  of  New  Eng¬ 
land)  building  towns  and  cities  on  the  products  of  its  manufactures 
and  commerce ;  fostering  common  schools  and  colleges ;  promoting 
equality  among  all  classes  of  citizens  ;  abolishing  slave  labor ;  advo¬ 
cating  a  strong  federal  government.  Virginia,  on  the  other  hand,  was 
an  agricultural  State.  The  cultivation  of  large  plantations  caused  a 
widely  scattered  population,  very  different  from  the  crowded  towns 
of  Massachusetts.  Doing  the  work  by  the  hands  of  slaves  had  tended 
to  form  there  a  landed  aristocracy ;  education  was  not  so  widely  dif¬ 
fused  ;  in  politics  the  tendency  was  towards  “  state  rights  ”  rather 
than  to  a  strong  federation.  Indeed,  the  two  States,  not  very  much 
alike  in  the  beginning,  had  ever  since  the  Revolution  been  growing 
more  and  more  apart.  There  was  not  much  love  lost  between  them. 
The  Virginians  thought  the  Yankees,  as  they  contemptuously  called 
the  New  Englanders,  altogether  too  saving  and  stingy.  They  de¬ 
clared  they  cared  for  nothing  but  dollars  and  cents.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  New  Englanders  had  an  innate  dislike  of  the  Virginia  traf¬ 
fic  in  slaves,  and  thought  the  habits  of  Virginia  less  rigid  in  morals 
than  they  ought  to  be.  In  a  word,  the  North  and  South,  represented 
by  Massachusetts  and  Virginia,  after  sharing  the  highest  offices  so 
long  between  them,  might  have  shared  the  whole  country,  if  another 
force  had  not  come  in  to  prevent  it.  For  recollect,  as  I  have  been 
telling  you,  all  this  time  the  great  West  has  been  filling  up,  and  its 

stirring  pioneer  life  has  produced  a  new  race  of  citizens.  It  was  time 

23 


352 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


to  select  a  president  from  among  these  men  to  represent  the  new 
growing  life  of  the  nation. 

Andrew  Jackson  was  the  coming  man  for  the  presidency, — the  first 
president  from  among  the  ranks  of  the  people.  Democrat  means, 
as  I  hope  you  know  by  this  time,  one  who  believes  in  the  right  of 
the  people  to  rule.  Now,  Jefferson  had  been  a  true  Democrat  in 
theory  ;  so  had  Madison  and  Monroe,  but  they,  as  well  as  Wash¬ 
ington  and  the  two  Adamses,  had  been  born  of  wealthy  and  culti¬ 
vated  families.  They  belonged  to  a  more  privileged  class.  But 
Andrew  Jackson  was  really  of  the  people  ;  born  among  them  ;  work¬ 
ing  among  them ;  struggling  up  to  power  from  their  midst.  He  was 
a  democrat  by  birth,  as  well  as  theory.  The  people  saw  this,  and 
this  was  one  thing  that  helped  to  make  him,  what  he  was  then,  and 
has  been  ever  since,  the  president  most  widely  popular,  and  more  be¬ 
loved  by  all  sections  of  the  country,  than  any  man  since  Washington. 
Hitherto  the  party  of  Jefferson  had  been  called  Republican.  But 
with  the  coming  in  of  Jackson,  who  ostensibly  followed  in  the  foot¬ 
steps  of  Jefferson's  party,  it  was  called  Democratic.  Make  way, 
then,  for  General  Andrew  Jackson,  first  Democratic  president  of  the 
United  States. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

RAILROADS  AND  BANKS. 

Character  of  Andrew  Jackson.  —  Traveling  by  Steam.  —  Tram-ways.  —  Oliver  Evans’s  Steam- 
engine. —  George  Stephenson. — Jackson’s  War  with  the  Banks. — The  First  National 
Banks.  —  Jackson  vetoes  the  Bank  Charter. 

We  have  seen  something  of  Andrew  Jackson  before.  At  Cam¬ 
den,  where  the  British  officer  knocked  him  down  for  resisting  his 
tyranny  ;  on  the  floor  of  Congress,  a  tall,  awkward  looking  back¬ 
woodsman  from  Tennessee ;  at  New  Orleans,  where  his  hatred  of 
the  British,  no  doubt,  helped  him  beat  the  flower  of  their  army 
there  ;  down  in  the  Florida  and  Mississippi  region,  putting  the  In¬ 
dians  under  subjection.  Wherever  we  have  seen  him,  we  have  seen 
a  man  who  does  what  he  means  to  do ;  will  brook  no  opposition. 
A  man  who  is  domineering,  arrogant,  merciless  to  his  enemies, 
inclined  to  use  all  the  power  he  can  take  into  his  hands ;  almost  a 


RAILROADS  AND  BANKS. 


353 


dangerous  man  to  put  in  power  if  it  had  not  been  for  one  quality : 
he  devotedly  loved  his  country ,  and  made  her  interests  his  own.  He 
made  mistakes,  of  course,  but  he  always  meant  to  do  his  duty  by 
his  country. 


He  was  sixty-two  years  old,  a  childless  and  lonely  old  man, 
almost  heart-broken  at  the  recent  loss  of  his  wife,  when  he  came  to 
Washington,  March  4th,  1829,  to  be  inaugurated.  Around  him,  as 
a  sort  of  body-guard,  were  a  group  of  old  soldiers,  survivors  of  the 
Revolutionary  War.  No  man  ever  held  that  war  and  its  heroes  in 
more  sacred  reverence  than  Andrew  Jackson. 

When  the  fiery  warrior  of  New  Orleans  was  made  president,  his 
opponents  said,  “  Now  we  shall  have  our  hands  full  of  wars  and 
broils  with  foreign  nations.  Jackson  hates  England  so  sincerely  he 
will  embrace  the  first  opportunity  to  quarrel  with  her.”  Their 
words  did  not  come  true,  however,  for  we  were  unusually  peaceful 
all  through  the  eight  years  of  Jackson’s  government.  The  most 
noteworthy  event  of  his  administration  was  the  beginning  of  land 
travel  by  steam  in  this  country.  We  had  had  steamboats  ever  since 
Fulton’s  successful  trip  on  the  Hudson.  Already  the  western  lakes 


354 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


and  rivers  were  filled  with  large  steamboats,  and  the  Mississippi 
swarmed  with  steamers,  carrying  goods  and  passengers  up  and  down 
between  Cincinnati,  Louisville,  St.  Louis,  New  Orleans,  and  all  the 
other  large  cities  connected  by  inland  rivers. 

Ever  since  the  discovery  of  the  steam-engine,  and  particularly 
*  since  its  application  to  boats,  far-sighted  men  had  been  prophesying 
the  application  of  steam  to  land  travel.  But  inventors  were  slow 
in  putting  this  idea  into  practice.  Everybody  said  we  must  have 
some  easier  way  of  transporting  goods  and  passengers  by  land,  but 
nobody  had  produced  the  locomotive,  worked  by  steam.  We  had 
built  the  great  Erie  Canal  through  New  York,  by  the  aid  of  De 
Witt  Clinton,  who  was  as  active  in  that  as  Robert  Livingston  had 


Oliver  Evans’s  Road  Engine. 


been  in  steam  navigation ;  but  that  did  not  serve  the  whole  purpose. 
It  was  the  problem  for  twenty  years  after  steamboats  began  to  run, 
how  to  get  the  same  increased  degree  of  speed  on  land. 

First,  railroads  began  to  come  in  use.  Coal  mines  caused  the  first 
railroads  to  be  made,  and  they  were  used  long  before  we  could  make 
steam-engines  run  on  them.  It  was  so  much  trouble  to  draw  great 
carts  loaded  with  coal  from  the  English  mines,  that  somebody  sug¬ 
gested  plank  roads,  with  wooden  rails,  over  which  wheeled  carts 
would  run  more  easily.  These  were  called  “  tram-ways.”  Then  it 
was  suggested  that  a  plate  of  iron  should  be  nailed  on  the  wooden 
rail  to  make  it  wear  longer ;  finally  an  iron  rail  was  substituted,  and 
thus  the  railway  was  all  ready  for  the  locomotive  and  cars.  These 
“  tram-ways  ”  had  long  been  used  in  England.  In  America,  they 
already  had  such  a  road  in  the  granite  quarries  of  Quincy,  Massa- 


RAILROADS  AND  BANKS.  355 

ckusetts,  to  draw  out  the  large  blocks  of  stone.  But  so  far  all  had 
been  done  by  horse-power. 

Yet  clever  men  were  all  the  time  experimenting  to  make  a  steam- 
engine  which  would  go.  They  tried  them  with  wheels,  and  tried 
them  with  four  legs  like  a  horse.  Benjamin  Franklin,  who  was,  as 
Captain  Cuttle  would  say,  “  so  chock  full  of  science,”  believed  it 
could  be  done.  If  he  had  not  been  so  busy  working  for  his  country 
he  might  have  found  time  to  invent  some  of  these  things.  As  it 
was,  he  only  speculated  about  them,  and  encouraged  others  to  be¬ 
lieve  in  the  possibility  of  the  steam  locomotive. 


First  Railway  Passenger  Engine. 


Oliver  Evans  of  Pennsylvania  was  the  most  earnest  in  advo¬ 
cating  the  use  of  steam  in  propelling  carriages.  He  invented  a 
steam-engine,  and  tried  in  vain  to  get  some  one  interested  in  his 
project,  who  could  lend  him  money  to  carry  on  his  inventions.  But 
a  member  of  the  Philosophical  Society  in  Philadelphia  ridiculed 
him  as  the  man  with  a  “  steam  mania,”  and  his  project  was  thought 
a  very  crazy  one.  In  England,  Richard  Trevethick  had  been  work¬ 
ing  on  an  engine  of  the  same  plan  as  Evans’s.  It  has  been  said  that 
Trevethick  saw  some  of  the  drawings  that  Evans  had  sent  to  Eng¬ 
land  when  he  was  trying  to  interest  people  there  in  his  scheme. 


356 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY 


However  that  may  be,  Trevethick  got  his  locomotive  made,  and 
made  one  or  two  successful  attempts  to  run  it,  until,  from  want  of 
money,  and  that  perseverance  which  surmounts  all  obstacles,  even 
want  of  money,  he  gave  up  the  plan. 


First  Railway  Coach. 


The  man  to  whom  belongs  the  honor  of  making  land  traveling 
by  steam  possible,  was  not  an  American.  It  was  the  English 
collier,  George  Stephenson,  who  showed  all  the  grit  and  energy 
which  deserved,  and  will  finally  gain,  success.  In  1825,  the  year 
John  Quincy  Adams  was  made  president,  the  first  Stephenson  loco¬ 
motive  was  run  over  a  railway  in  England. 

We  had  now  several  railroads  built,  and  in  process  of  building, 
in  the  United  States,  beside  the  one  in  Quincy.  The  longest  one 
was  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  road,  which  already  began  to  draw 
passengers  by  horse-power.  And  when  the  news  of  Stephenson’s 
success  came  here,  we  were  already  talking  about  steam  locomotives. 
By  1830,  steam-engines  were  running  on  several  roads,  and  in  1832 
they  had  already  run  as  fast  as  thirty-eight  miles  an  hour.  Rail¬ 
roads  for  the  new  steam  carriages  and  engines  were  building  all 
over  the  country,  and  we  were  beginning  then  to  be,  what  we  have 
since  become,  the  greatest  nation  on  the  globe  for  vast  railroad 
enterprises.  How  delighted  would  Thomas  Jefferson  have  been,  if 
he  could  have  seen  the  Pacific  Railroad,  binding  together  the  great 
extent  of  country  which  he  sent  Lewis  and  Clarke  to  explore.  It 
is  such  inventions  as  these,  rather  than  any  wars  of  conquest,  that 
make  our  country  great  and  united. 


RAILROADS  AND  BANKS. 


357 


There  were  two  great  political  events  in  Jackson’s  time  which 
caused  much  excitement,  of  which  I  must  tell  you.  One  was  Jack¬ 
son’s  war  with  the  United  States  Bank,  and  the  other,  his  treat¬ 
ment  of  the  N ullifiers  of  South  Carolina.  I  will  explain  to  you 
briefly  about  both. 

Ever  since  the  days  of  the  Revolution,  the  United  States  had 
kept  up  a  national  bank.  Robert  Morris,  the  financier  of  Conti¬ 
nental  Congress,  planned  the  first  one,  which  lasted  until  Washing¬ 
ton  was  made  president.  Then  Washington’s  right-hand  man, 
Alexander  Hamilton,  brought  forward  a  charter  for  a  national  bank, 
which  Congress  approved.  It  went  into  operation,  and  was  a  very 
serviceable  institution  until  1811,  when  it  wound  up  its  affairs  and 
passed  quietly  out  of  existence.  While  we  were  carrying  on  the 
second  war  with  England,  our  finances  got  badly  muddled  again, 
and  President  Madison  was  sometimes  almost  at  his  wit’s  end  to 
know  what  to  do  for  money.  Governments  are  just  as  likely  to  be 
troubled  in  their  money  matters  as  private  individuals,  and  the  man 
who  is  clear-headed  enough  to  fill  the  office  of  the  secretary  of  treas¬ 
ury,  and  fill  it  well,  must  be  a  very  remarkable  man  indeed. 

President  Madison  called  to  his  aid  Alexander  Dallas,  and  he 
planned  a  new  bank  for  the  relief  of  the  government.  This  bank  — 
the  one  in  existence  wrhen  Jackson  came  to  the  chair  of  state  —  for 
a  time  worked  admirably,  and  relieved  the  government  of  its 
troubles.  It  had  a  charter  from  Congress,  allowing  it  to  continue 
as  a  national  bank  till  the  year  1836  ;  and  it  was  expected  by  all 
who  were  interested  in  it,  that  Congress  and  the  president  would 
grant  it  a  new  charter  from  that  date,  and  it  would  go  on  increas¬ 
ing  in  power  and  prosperity. 

But  Jackson  was  no  sooner  president  than  he  began  to  show  his 
dislike  to  the  institution.  He  thought  it  was  not  democratic,  be¬ 
cause  it  placed  so  much  money-power  in  a  few  hands.  He  also 
liked  good  hard  gold  and  silver  money,  as  we  all  do,  I  fancy,  and 
he  believed  that  these  paper  bank-notes  did  not  always  represent 
hard  cash.  So  he  began  a  war  on  the  national  bank.  First,  the 
bank  people  applied  for  a  new  charter,  to  come  in  force  when  the 
old  one  expired.  Congress  voted  them  a  charter,  and  Jackson 
vetoed 1  it.  Then  he  forbade  the  depositing  of  any  more  money  in 
the  bank,  and  ordered  that  the  deposits  should  be  removed  from  the 
national  bank  vault  to«the  different  state  banks. 


1  The  veto  (from  a  Latin  word,  meaning  "  to  forbid  ”)  is  the  power  the  president  has  to  for¬ 
bid  an  act  passed  by  Congress. 


858 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


This  caused  a  great  uproar.  The  strongest  men  in  Congress, 
representing  the  wealth  of  the  country,  opposed  the  president.  His 
cabinet  trembled  in  their  shoes.  When  he  told  the  secretary  of  the 
treasury  to  remove  the  deposits,  he  dared  not  obey  him.  On  this, 
Jackson  made  the  secretary  resign,  and  put  a  new  man  in  his  place, 
who  took  the  responsibility  of  moving  the  money.  The  whole 
country  was  disturbed  and  fearful  of  the  consequences.  But  the 
admiration  the  Americans  have  for  pluck  aided  the  determined 
old  general,  and  the  bank  was  crushed.  The  Democrats  were  all 
delighted  with  this  result,  and  the  Federalists  correspondingly  un¬ 
happy.  It  made  some  financial  trouble  among  the  wealthy  bond¬ 
holders,  and  a  good  many  failures  for  a  time. 

Jackson’s  manner  of  dealing  with  the  Nullifiers  was  his  great 
triumph,  and  won  him  the  hearts  of  the  Federalists.  You  must 
know  first  who  the  Nullifiers  were,  and  I  will  begin  a  new  chapter 
to  explain  it. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

NULLIFIERS  IN  SOUTH  CAROLINA. 

Manufactures  in  United  States.  —  They  ask  for  a  “  Protective  Tariff.” — The  South  threaten 
Rebellion.  —  Three  Great  Men.  —  The  Man  of  the  South. — The  Man  of  the  West.  —  The 
Man  of  the  North.  —  Wrath  of  Jackson.  — Speech  of  Daniel  Webster.  —  The  Nullifiers  sub¬ 
dued. —  Indian  Troubles  again.  —  The  Indians  moved  West. — Jackson  returns  to  his 
Hermitage. 


After  the  country  began  to  establish  manufactures  of  various 
kinds,  in  order  that  we  might  not  be  dependent  on  Europe  for  all 
our  cloth,  hats,  shoes,  and  other  manufactured  articles,  the  makers 
of  these  goods  began  to  call  on  Congress  to  “  protect  ”  them  by 
passing  a  law  to  tax  all  articles  brought  here  from  Europe,  of  the 
same  kind  as  those  they  were  making  for  our  markets.  “We  are 
poor  and  weak  now,”  said  the  manufacturers  to  Congress.  “  These 
great  factories  in  Europe  can  afford  to  sell  lower  than  we  can,  and  they 
will  bring  their  goods  here,  and  sell  them  so  cheap  to  our  people, 
that  they  will  buy  them,  and  we  shall  not  be  able  to  make  any  more 
hats  or  cotton  cloth  or  iron.  But  if  you  make  the  people  who 
import  from  Europe  pay  you  such  a  tax  that  they  will  be  forced 
to  sell  their  goods  as  high  as  our  home-made  articles,  we  shall  soon 
be  able  to  make  as  good  hats  or  iron  or  cloth  as  they.  Such  a  tax 


NULLIFIERS  IN  SOUTH  CAROLINA. 


359 


will  make  the  nation  richer,  because  the  money  will  go  into  the 
public  treasury  ;  it  will  make  us  richer,  for  it  will  help  us  to  become 
large  manufacturers ;  it  will  make  our  work-people  richer,  because 
we  can  pay  them  much  larger  wages  than  the  work-people  in  Europe 
receive.” 

This  was  in  substance  what  the  manufacturers  said  to  Congress 
and  the  country.  Nearly  everybody  approved  ;  and  in  1828  a  law 
called  a  “  protective  tariff  ”  was  passed,  heavily  taxing  foreign  goods 
to  protect  national  manufactures. 

Well,  this  law  had  not  been  long  in  operation  before  the  South¬ 
ern  States,  who  were  agricultural,  and  not  commercial  and  manufact¬ 
uring  like  New  England,  New  York,  or  Pennsylvania,  discovered 
that  protection  was  not  as  good  for  them,  as  it  was  for  the  others. 
They  said  to  Congress,  “  It  is  very  true  that  this  tariff  makes  the 
manufacturers  rich,  able  to  build  great  factories,  and  cities  full  of  the 
humming  of  cotton  spindles.  But  what  good  does  it  do  us,  in  Vir¬ 
ginia  or  the  Carolinas  ?  We  do  not  sell  our  cotton  at  any  better 
price,  on  account  of  it ;  and  when  we  want  to  buy  cloth  or  shoes, 
we  have  to  pay  more  for  the  American  article  than  we  should  have  to 
pay  for  the  European  article,  if  it  were  not  for  this  odious  tax.  Be¬ 
sides,  the  foreign  article,  which  we  can  buy  cheap,  is  better  than  the 
American  article  for  which  we  pay  dear.  If  Massachusetts  who 
makes  cloth,  and  Pennsylvania  who  produces  iron,  want  a  4  protective 
tariff,’  let  them  have  it.  But  give  us  free  trade.” 

Congress  replied  that  a  law  made  for  one  part  of  the  country 
must  be  good  all  over  the  country.  They  could  not  make  laws  for 
one  State  and  different  ones  for  another.  Finally,  the  feeling  waxed 
very  bitter  in  the  South,  especially  in  South  Carolina,  and  the  lat¬ 
ter  State  began  to  take  action  against  the  law.  She  declared  that 
she  would  not  pay  a  tax  ;  that  the  general  government  had  no  right 
to  enforce  a  law  on  a  State  which  that  State  did  not  choose  to  ac¬ 
cept  and  that  she  should  defend  her  state  rights  and  take  herself  out 
of  the  Federal  Union  of  States,  if  the  country  tried  to  enforce  the 
tariff  laws  there.  They  held  public  meetings,  in  which  they  declared 
the  tariff  null  and  void  in  South  Carolina  ;  and  hence  they  received 
the  name  of  JVullifiers,  and  their  attempts  to  make  the  tariff  of  no 
effect  were  called  “  Nullification  Acts.”  At  this  time  there  were 
three  very  remarkable  men  in  the  United  States  Senate,  who  were 
so  much  engaged  in  this  dispute  that  I  want  to  describe  them  to 
you.  Probably  we  have  never  had  at  one  time  three  so  remarkable 


360  STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 

men  in  Congress  as  these  three,  Daniel  Webster,  John  C.  Calhoun, 
and  Henry  Clay. 

John  C.  Calhoun  was  the  man  of  the  South,  the  leader  of  the 

Nullifiers.  He  was  a 
South  Carolinian  by 
birth,  and  believed 
with  all  his  heart  in 
his  State.  He  was  a 
tall,  slender,  erect 
man,  with  wonder¬ 
fully  bright,  keen 
eyes,  that  lighted  up 
his  thin,  sallow  face 
like  coals  of  fire. 
When  he  spoke  in 
Congress,  his  speeches 
were  like  the  blows 
of  a  steel  hammer, — 
decisive,  clear,  logical, 
with  little  of  the  em¬ 
broidery  of  fancy  or 
rhetoric.  He  believed 
with  sincerity,  that 
the  rights  of  the 
state  were  superior  to  those  of  the  government ;  and  with  the  aid  of 
his  friend,  Robert  Hayne,  who  was  also  a  senator  of  South  Caro¬ 
lina,  he  was  ready  to  oppose  the  tariff  laws,  by  force  if  necessary ; 
was  willing  to  take  his  State  out  of  the  Union,  and  make  her  a 
little  nation  by  herself.  He  was  adored  by  his  party,  and  considered 
the  foremost  leader  and  champion  of  the  South. 

The  man  of  the  West  was  Henry  Clay,  the  darling  of  the  whole 
region  west  of  the  Alleghanies.  He  was  born  in  Virginia,  the  son 
of  a  poor  preacher,  and  was  a  self-made  man.  His  manners  were 
so  gracious  and  charming,  that  he  won  the  friendship  of  nearly  all 
who  met  him,  and  probably  had  more  personal  friends  than  any 
man  in  public  office.  As  a  speech-maker  he  was  unsurpassed.  He 
had  a  beautiful,  clear,  ringing  voice,  which  went  straight  through 
the  ear  to  the  heart.  This,  with  his  fine  presence,  his  winning 
face,  his  affable  manners,  made  him  a  host  in  himself  when  he 
supported  or  opposed  any  measure.  He  was  opposed  with  all  his 


NULLIFIERS  IN  SOUTH  CAROLINA. 


361 


might  to  the  ideas  of  Calhoun  and  his  followers,  and  although  he 
had  never  been  of  the  Federalist  party,  he  was  as  strong  a  lover  of 
the  Union  as  any  Massachusetts  Federalist. 

The  third  in  this  trio  of 
great  men  was  Daniel  Web¬ 
ster,  the  man  of  the  North. 

A  New  Hampshire  man  by 
birth,  he  had  removed  to 
Massachusetts,  and  was  a 
senator  from  that  State. 

He  had  been  reared  a  Fed¬ 
eralist,  and  held  the  doc¬ 
trines  of  Hamilton  and  his 
peers.  Since  the  War  of 
1812,  however,  he  had  sided 
with  the  administration  on 
many  points,  although  in 
union  with  both  Clay  and 
Calhoun,  he  had  opposed 
the  president  in  his  bank 
policy. 

Of  these  three  great  men, 

Daniel  Webster  was  the 
strongest  and  most  power¬ 
ful  orator.  He  had  a  tall,  massive  figure,  with  the  head  and  shoul¬ 
ders  of  a  Titan.  His  great  forehead  projected  over  a  pair  of  large 
dark  eyes  that  could  glow  like  lurid  fires.  He  had  a  voice  to  match 
his  face,  deep  and  sonorous,  that  was  to  the  ringing  utterances  of 
Henry  Clay  as  the  clang  of  a  deep-toned  cathedral  bell  to  the  peal 
of  musical  chime  bells.  His  speeches  were  like  hftnself,  massive, 
and  grand,  often  soaring  into  regions  of»sublimest  eloquence.  No 
man  listened  to  Webster  without  feeling  thrilled  with  his  oratory, 
and  even  those  who  were  opposed  to  him  often  felt  their  prejudices 
melt  away  before  his  eloquence.  Like  Clay,  he  was  a  self-made 
man,  the  son  of  a  poor  farmer,  working  hard  as  a  boy  to  get  an 
education,  and  struggling  upward  through  poverty  to  his  present 
position. 

These  three  men  were  in  the  full  vigor  of  life  in  Jackson’s  admin¬ 
istration.  In  1832,  when  the  nullifying  agitation  was  at  its  height, 
Webster  and  Calhoun,  both  born  in  one  year,  were  forty-seven  years 
•old.  Clay  was  fifty-two. 


362  STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 

When  Jackson  heard  how  the  Nullifiers  were  holding  meetings  in 
South  Carolina,  threatening  to  oppose  the  government  by  force  of 
arms,  and  that  Calhoun  and  Hayne  were  encouraging  them  with 

speeches  to  this  effect, 
his  wrath  waxed  as  hot 
against  them  as  it  had 
against  the  British  at  New 
Orleans.  He  was  down 
in  his  Hermitage  in  Ten¬ 
nessee  when  the  news  of 
the  agitation  in  Charles¬ 
ton  reached  him.  The 
country  had  just  elected 
him  president  for  a  second 
term  by  an  immense  ma¬ 
jority.  He  flew  to  Wash¬ 
ington,  and  there  issued  a 
vigorous  proclamation  to 
the  people  of  South  Caro¬ 
lina,  calling  them  back  to 
their  allegiance  as  sub¬ 
jects  of  the  United  States. 
He  ordered  ships  to  be 
sent  to  the  harbor  of 
Charleston  ;  he  sent  orders  to  the  forts  to  be  on  the  look-out  for  the 
first  sign  of  insurrection  ;  he  marched  troops  there,  ready  to  sup¬ 
press  the  first  symptom  of  revolt.  In  short,  if  that  insurrectionary 
little  State  had  dared  to  take  one  step  in  opposition  to  the  govern¬ 
ment,  Jackson  would  have  had  her  under  subjection  before  she  had 
time  to  strike  a  blow. 

The  Nullifiers  saw  that  resistance  was  foolhardy.  The  public 
meetings  were  stopped  ;  the  volunteers  who  had  been  drilling  in 
Charleston  went  home  ;  patriotic  South  Carolinians  took  off  the  blue 
cockade  with  a  palmetto  button  in  the  centre,  which  they  had  been 
wearing  as  the  sign  of  their  loyalty  to  the  State,  and  defiance  of  the 
government.  Mr.  Calhoun  came  quietly  up  to  take  his  seat  in  Con¬ 
gress,  and  see  what  peaceful  measures  would  do  in  the  tariff  busi¬ 
ness.  Very  soon  Mr.  Clay  introduced  a  bill  in  Congress,  softening 
the  tariff  measures  so  disagreeable  to  the  South,  and  the  disunion 
cloud  passed  over. 


NULLIFIERS  IN  SOUTH  CAROLINA. 


363 


But  many  of  the  people,  who  knew  Jackson  had  never  been  a 
friend  of  the  Federalist  party,  and  were  not  certain  how  he  would 
behave  if  the  Union  were  threatened,  were  from  this  hour  Jack¬ 
son’s  most  loyal  adherents.  New  Eng¬ 
land  resounded  with  his  praises.  What 
he  had  done  to  the  national  bank  was 
forgotten  even  by  the  friends  of  the 
bank.  The  whole  people  would  have 
borne  him  aloft  on  their  shoulders  from 
Maine  to  Florida,  so  proud  and  fond  they 
were  of  the  president  who  maintained 
the  Constitution  and  the  Union. 

As  for  Jackson,  he  was  thoroughly  in 
earnest.  He  did  not  care  whether  it 
made  him  popular  or  not.  He  would 
have  done  the  same,  in  either  case.  He 
used  to  say,  “  Hainan’s  gallows  was  not 
high  enough  to  hang  the  man  upon,  who 
would  raise  his  finger  to  pull  down  the 
Union.”  I  think  he  was  a  little  sorry 
on  his  death-bed  that  he  had  not  hung  John  C.  Calhoun  and  some 
of  his  fellow  conspirators,  as  a  “  warning  to  future  traitors.” 

Some  of  Webster’s  speeches  at  this  time  are  the  grandest  speci¬ 
mens  of  American  eloquence.  His  speech  in  answer  to  Robert 
Hayne,  when  he  talked  of  disunion  on  the  floor  of  Congress,  is  one 
of  his  most  famous  orations.  Then  Webster  announced  the  doctrine, 
that  the  United  States  teas  not  a  league  of  States ,  but  a  nation ,  — 
one  and  indivisible  —  as  much  as  Great  Britain  or  France.  He 
repudiated  the  doctrine  of  “every  man  for  his  State,”  and  announced 
that  every  citizen  of  the  United  States  had  a  country ,  whose  inter¬ 
ests  were  above  that  little  corner  of  the  Union  where  he  happened 
to  be  born.  So  ended  the  agitation  in  South  Carolina,  which  Jack¬ 
son’s  energy  nipped  at  once  in  the  bud. 

There  were  Indian  wars  in  Jackson’s  time.  Those  were  a  neces¬ 
sary  consequence  of  all  our  dealings  with  the  Indians.  The  tribes 
of  the  South  —  the  Seminoles  in  Florida,  and  the  Creeks,  Choctaws, 
Cherokees,  and  Chickasaws,  who  lived  in  Georgia,  Alabama,  and 
the  region  of  the  Mississippi  —  must  be  moved  beyond  the  great 
liver.  The  white  man  wanted  their  lands,  and  the  white  and  the 
red  man  could  not  occupy  the  same  soil  in  peace.  A  tract  called 


The  Palmetto. 


364 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


the  Indian  Territory  had  been  set  apart  for  them,  and  thither  it  was 
decided  the  Indians  must  go.  Naturally  they  did  not  wish  to  go. 
They  were  somewhat  civilized,  —  all  these  tribes  whose  names  I 
have  given.  They  had  their  farms  and  their  villages  ;  many  of 
them  owned  negro  slaves ;  they  had  built  saw  and  grist-mills  and 
stores,  and  possessed  many  of  the  appliances  of  civilized  life.  Some 
of  their  leaders  were  half-breeds,  the  sons  of  white  men,  and  were 
more  intelligent  than  the  full-blooded  Indians.  They  were  readv 
to  fight  bitterly  before  they  would  remove  beyond  the  Mississippi. 

But  Jackson  was  as  determined  in  this  as  in  all  other  matters, — 
and  he  had  decided  they  must  remove.  The  Seminoles  fought 
fiercely  under  Osceola,  a  half-breed  chief,  who  had  suffered  wrongs 
enough  at  the  hands  of  the  white  man  to  stir  a  fever  in  less  savage 

blood  than  his.  He  was  finally  captured, 
and  taken  in  irons  to  Fort  Moultrie,  where 
lie  died  a  prisoner.  The  Creeks  also 
fought,  as  all  brave  men  have  done  before 
or  since,  for  the  right  to  their  homes  and 
firesides.  General  Winfield  Scott  was 
finally  sent  there,  and  with  very  wise  and 
soothing  management  succeeded  in  re¬ 
moving  all  the  tribes  to  the  new  Indian 
country.  The  last  of  theni^jjsent  about 
1838.  There  these  tribes  remain  to  this  day,  —  tj^most  intelligent 
and  civilized  communities  of  Indians  in  they^fountry.  They  have 
schools,  printing-presses,  and  a  degree  of  intelligence  among  them, 
which  argues  well  for  their  capacity  to  make  good  citizens.  If  the 
white  men  had  known  how  to  make  peace  with  them  as  well  as  they 
had  known  how  to  make  war  upon  them,  we  might  have  been  spared 
much  bloodshed  and  a  great  deal  of  money. 

Jackson’s  administration  ended  in  March,  1837.  The  vice-presi¬ 
dent  of  his  second  term  was  Martin  Van  Buren  of  New  York,  a 
descendant  of  the  worthy  Dutch  settlers.  “  Old  Hickory,”  as  the 
people  fondly  called  Jackson,  was  growing  infirm  and  tired  of  office. 
He  wanted  his  friend  and  colleague,  Van  Buren,  to  be  president,  and 
he  helped  toward  his  election.  Before  he  retired  to  the  Hermi¬ 
tage,  he  had  the  satisfaction  of  assisting  in  the  ceremonies  which 
mfspLe  Martin  Van  Buren  the  eighth  President  of  the  United  States. 


VAN  BOREN,  HARRISON,  AND  TYLER. 


3t>7 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

VAN  BUREN,  HARRISON,  AND  TYLER, 

“Old  Hickory”  and  “Old  Ironsides.” — Hard  Times. — Log  Cabin  Campaign. — Death  of 
General  Harrison. — John  Tyler’s  Presidency. — A  New  Invention.  —  Samuel  Morse,  the 
Artist  and  Inventor.  —  Invention  of  the  Telegraph.  — A  New  Political  Question. 

When  Van  Buren  rode  through  the  streets  of  Washington  to  the 
capitol,  to  take  the  in¬ 
augural  vows,  General 
Jackson  rode  by  his  side. 

The  carriage  in  which 
they  sat  together  was 
made  of  wood  which  had 
once  been  part  of  “  Old 
Ironsides,’  ’  —  the  gallant 
ship  Constitution ,  which 
had  figured  so  often  in 
our  naval  history.  “  Old 
Hickory  ”  and  “  Old  Iron¬ 
sides  ”  shared  with  the 
new  president  the  cheers 
of  the  crowd. 

Mr.  Van  Buren  was 
hardly  made  president 
before  the  country  was  in 
great  distress.  All  these 
bank  troubles  and  moving 
about  of  the  money  of  the  country,  had  made  many  troubles  among 
business  men.  Then  there  had  been  too  much  land  speculation,  and 
other  kinds  of  speculation,  for  several  years.  All  this  helped  now  to 
make  a  panic,  and  the  whole  country  was  in  the  condition  of  a 
bankrupt  merchant,  whose  creditors  will  not  wait  a  day  for  their 
money.  Rich  men  failed,  poor  men  were  thrown  out  of  employ¬ 
ment.  Provisions,  always  so  cheap  before,  became  very  dear.  Flour 
was  fifteen  dollars  a  barrel,  and  the  poor,  who  had  no  work,  were 
many  of  them  without  bread.  Those  were  hard  days.  People 
blamed  the  government,  which  really  had  nothing  to  do  with  the 
state  of  affairs,  and  the  new  president  was  made  unpopular  by  the 

discomfort  which  prevailed. 

24 


368 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


When  his  four  years  had  nearly  expired,  the  Democrats  nominated 
Van  Buren  for  president  again.  Meantime  the  other  party  —  now 
no  longer  called  Federalists ,  but  renamed  “Whigs,”  in  remembrance 
of  the  revolutionary  patriots — had  been  growing  stronger.  They 
nominated  for  president,  William  Henry  Harrison,  our  old  Indian 
fighter  in  Indiana,  the  hero  of  Tippecanoe.  For  vice-president  they 
had  John  Tyler  of  Virginia. 


The  Whigs  made  the  land  ring  with  a  new  war-cry  of  “  Tippeca¬ 
noe  and  Tyler  too."  General  Harrison  had  been  living  quietly  in 

Ohio  ever  since  he  had  re¬ 
signed  his  army  command 
on  the  western  border  to 
Andrew  Jackson  in  1814. 
For  several  years  he  had 
occupied  a  rude  frame-house 
on  the  western  frontier,  and 
lived  like  a  plain  farmer  of 
very  moderate  means. 

Some  of  his  Democratic 
opponents  said  of  him  sneer- 
ingly,  “  Give  Harrison  a  log- 
cabin  and  a  barrel  of  hard 
cider,  and  he  will  never 
leave  Ohio  to  be  President 
of  the  United  States.”  On 
this  his  followers  took  up 
the  word,  and  the  “  log 
cabin  and  hard  cider  cam¬ 
paign  ”  was  one  of  the  most 
exciting  political  fights  ever  fought.  Newspapers  bore  pictures  of 
log  cabins  at  their  head,  and  barrels  of  hard  cider  were  rolled  from 
one  town  to  another,  attended  by  crowds  of  boys  and  men  who 
turned  out  to  see  the  fun.  It  ended  in  Harrison’s  election  to  the 
presidency,  with  Mr.  John  Tyler  as  vice-president. 

Ever,  since  the  election  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  forty  years  before, 
the  Democratic  party  had  held  the  political  power  and  offices.  Now 
the  party  which  claimed  to  represent  Washington  and  the  elder 
Adams,  once  more  took  the  reins. 

It  was  a  brief  triumph,  however.  On  the  4th  of  March,  1841, 
William  Henry  Harrison  took  the  solemn  oath  of  his  office.  On 


VAN  BUREN,  HARRISON,  AND  TYLER. 


369 


the  4th  of  April,  one  month  later,  he  lay  a  corpse  in  the  national 
capitol.  Worn  out  by  the  excitement  and  labors  of  the  election,  he 
died  before  the  country  knew  how  well  he  would  have  filled  his  high 
office. 

In  the  event  of  the  death  of  the  president,  the  vice-president  takes 
his  place.  John  Tyler  now  came  forward  to  take  the  chair  from 
which  his  colleague  had 
been  so  suddenly  re¬ 
moved  by  death.  He 
had  been  elected  by  the 
Whigs,  and  they  natu¬ 
rally  expected  him  to  be 
their  ally.  But  for  some 
cause  or  other  he  disap¬ 
pointed  their  hopes,  and 
very  soon  was  acting  in 
open  alliance  with  the 
Democratic  party  which 
had  held  the  power  so 
many  years  before  Har¬ 
rison’s  election. 

The  most  important 
event  which  occurred  in 


Tyler’s  time  was  the  in¬ 
troduction  of  telegraphy, 
which  now  followed  the 
two  great  inventions  of 
steamboats  and  railways. 

Like  all  the  great  inventions,  the  telegraph  had  been  many  years 
growing  to  perfection.  Benjamin  Franklin,  flying  his  kite  to  the 
clouds  to  draw  the  lightning  down,  had  done  something  toward 
the  series  of  discoveries  which  helped  make  the  telegraph.  From 
his  day,  the  wise  men  of  France,  Germany,  Russia,  Spain,  Eng¬ 
land,  and  America,  had  been  making  experiments  with  electricity, 
galvanic  batteries,  and  many  other  machines,  which  you  and  I  do 
not  very  well  understand,  — all  of  which  helped  on  to  the  telegraph. 
Franklin  himself  had  sent  lightning  across  the  Schuylkill  River  on 
a  wire,  and  some  Spanish  experimenters  had  sent  a  message  on  a 
wire  twenty-six  miles  long,  as  early  as  1798.  After  the  idea  had 
been  started  that  messages  might  really  be  sent  on  wires  from  one 


370 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


place  to  another,  it  began  to  grow  in  many  minds  at  once,  and  al¬ 
most  at  the  same  time  a  German,  an  Englishman,  and  an  American, 
began  to  invent  a  system  of  telegraphing  by  electricity. 

The  American,  to  whom  we  owe  our  telegraph,  was  Samuel  Morse 
of  Massachusetts.  His  father  was  the  Rev.  Jedediah  Morse,  a 
clergyman,  who  had  made  the  first  geography  ever  published  in 
America.  Your  great  grandfathers  and  grandmothers,  no  doubt, 
studied  Morse’s  Geography  when  they  went  to  school.  Samuel 
Morse  made  up  his  mind  to  be  an  artist,  and  went  over  to  England 
early  in  life  to  study  painting  with  two  great  American  painters, 
Washington  Allston  and  Benjamin  West.  You  remember,  Robert 
Fulton  was  an  artist,  too,  and  that  he  also  went  to  England  and 
studied  with  West.  There  is  an  idea  quite  prevalent  that  painters 
and  other  artists  are  not  very  practical,  but  for  all  that  the  two  men 
who  introduced  steamboats  and  telegraphing  into  America,  and 
made  them  go ,  were  artists  by  profession. 

While  studying  and  practicing  his  profession,  Mr.  Morse  went 
several  times  across  the  Atlantic  Ocean.  On  one  of  these  jour¬ 
neys,  in  the  year  1832,  he  was  talking  with  a  fellow-passenger  about 
discoveries  in  electricity,  and  in  the  course  of  the  talk  the  idea  of 
the  telegraph,  just  as  he  afterwards  carried  it  out,  came  into  his 
head.  He  went  to  his  cabin  and  made  drawings  to  express  his 
idea,  and  from  that  time  forward  devoted  himself  to  perfecting  his 
design. 

In  the  mean  time  William  Cooke  and  William  Wheatstone  in 
England,  and  Professor  Steinheil  in  Germany,  were  also  busily 
engaged  in  a  similar  enterprise.  Wheatstone’s  telegraph  was  done 
first,  and  was  used  in  England  in  1837.  Morse  could  not  get  the 
help  which  he  asked  from  Congress  till  1843.  Then  they  gave  him 
830,000  to  aid  him  in  his  work,  and  in  1844  a  wire  was  laid  from 
Washington  to  Baltimore  and  the  first  message  ever  sent  in  the 
United  States  passed  between  those  two  cities.  Professor  Steinheil 
was  not  so  fortunate  as  his  rivals.  He,  too,  produced  a  telegraphing 
apparatus  so  nearly  similar  to  Morse’s  that  only  a  very  slight  differ¬ 
ence  marked  Morse’s  superiority.  When  Morse  went  to  Europe 
to  get  his  invention  used  there,  the  three  systems  of  Wheatstone, 
Steinheil,  and  Morse  were  exhibited.  Steinheil  closely  examined 
Morse’s  in  the  respect  in  which  it  differed  from  his  own,  and  finally, 
with  touching  generosity,  declared  that  the  American  invention 
was  the  best,  and  recommended  it  to  the  committee  who  were 


BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  MEXICO. 


371 


examining  it.  A  man  who  could  so  generously  support  the  inter¬ 
ests  of  science,  when  to  do  so  cost  him  the  work  of  a  life-time,  and 
made  his  own  invention  useless, 
must  be  a  noble  character,  and  I 
like  to  record  here  the  name  of 
Professor  Steinheil  of  Munich. 

Wheatstone  strongly  contended  for 
the  superiority  of  his  method,  and 
it  has  kept  the  supremacy  in  Eng¬ 
land.  Morse’s  telegraph  was  ac¬ 
cepted  by  nearly  all  the  European 
nations,  and  he  was  loaded  with 
honors  in  Europe  and  America. 

Such  is  briefly  the  history  of  the 
electric  telegraph,  one  of  the  great 
inventions  of  the  world.  It  makes 
the  year  1844  one  of  the  most  nota¬ 
ble  in  our  country’s  history. 

A  dispute  which  greatly  troubled  political  parties  in  John  Tyler’s 
time,  was  about  the  annexation  of  Texas ;  whether  we  should  let 
the  independent  State  of  Texas  become  one  of  the  United  States. 
We  have  not  before  heard  of  this  new  country  of  Texas,  and  I  must 
begin  a  new  chapter  to  tell  you  about  it. 


Samuel  F.  B.  Morse. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  MEXICO. 

Spanish  Conquest  of  Mexico.  —  Inhabitants  of  Mexico.  —  Americans  in  Texas.  —  Sam  Hous¬ 
ton.  —  Texas  rebels  against  Mexico,  and  asks  to  join  the  United  States. 

Do  you  remember  Hernando  Cortez  ?  He  was  the  Spanish  war¬ 
rior  who,  with  a  handful  of  soldiers,  entered  the  territory  of  Mexico 
in  North  America,  penetrated  to  its  great  inland  capital,  took  the 
emperor  Montezuma  prisoner  in  his  very  palace,  and  subjected  the 
country  to  the  power  of  Spain.  For  years  the  gold  and  silver  of 
Mexico  went  to  enrich  the  coffers  of  Spain,  and  its  mines  seemed  to 
offer  boundless  riches  which  could  never  be  exhausted.  All  the 
dreams  of  Columbus,  of  the  rich  lands  which  he  hoped  to  find  in 
the  East,  were  fulfilled  in  the  western  country  of  Mexico. 


372 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


Ever  since  the  conquest  of  Cortez,  Mexico  had  belonged  to  Spain. 
This  not  only  included  the  present  domain  of  Mexico,  but  Texas, 
California,  and  New  Mexico,  all  three  now  States  and  Territories  of 
the  United  States.  1  am  going  to  tell  you  how  these  three  large 
portions  of  Mexico  came  to  be  joined  to  our  territory. 

Poor  Spain  had  not  been  fortunate  in  her  American  possessions. 
First  she  was  obliged  to  cede  Louisiana  to  France,  and  we  bought 
that  Territory  of  the  latter  country.  Then  she  was  obliged  to 
yield  Florida  to  the  United  States,  in  order  to  settle  a  dispute  about 
boundaries.  Thus  her  possessions  began  to  dwindle  away.  The 
inhabitants  of  Mexico  had  been  a  mixed  population  from  the  time 
of  Cortez.  First,  there  were  the  Spanish  settlers,  who  held  the  power 
and  the  government  offices,  and  were  haughty,  overbearing,  and  often 
cruel  to  their  inferiors  ;  then  there  were  the  native  Mexicans,  or  In¬ 
dians,  who  were  a  race  easily  subdued,  and  who  had  suffered  great 
oppression  under  Spanish  rule  ;  lastly  there  were  a  mixed  race,  which 
had  sprung  from  the  intermarriage  of  the  Spanish  and  Indian  races. 
These  made  up  the  inhabitants  of  Mexico.  After  the  United  States 
became  an  independent  nation,  there  was  a  strong  party  in  Mexico, 
disliking  the  Spanish  rule,  who  would  have  been  very  glad  to  follow 
the  example  of  the  United  States  in  making  herself  an  independent 
nation.  Affairs  were  tolerably  quiet  there,  however,  till  1810,  when 
the  Mexicans  revolted  and  tried  to  throw  off  the  power  of  Spain. 
There  was  a  good  deal  of  hot  fighting  for  several  years.  Some¬ 
times  the  Spanish  would  think  the  rebellion  was  subdued,  and  every¬ 
thing  settled,  when  all  at  once  the  Mexicans  would  be  up  in  arms 
again,  and  the  Spanish  rulers  deposed  and  sent  to  prison.  At  length, 
in  1824,  Mexico  finally  declared  herself  a  republic,  free  of  Spain ; 
drew  up  a  constitution,  made  a  federal  union  of  nineteen  states  and 
four  territories,  and  elected  her  president  and  vice-president  for  four 
years,  just  like  the  United  States.  Thus  we  had  a  republican 
neighbor  next  door,  and  the  power  of  Spain  was  broken  in  America. 
There  were  a  great  many  American  settlers  living  in  a  part  of  Mex¬ 
ico  called  Texas,  which  joined  the  United  States,  and  many  of  them 
helped  the  Mexicans  in  their  rebellion  against  Spain.  When  Mex¬ 
ico  became  a  republic,  many  Americans  bought  land-grants,  and 
went  to  Texas  to  settle.  It  was  such  a  great  broad  country  to  raise 
cattle  upon,  that  hundreds  of  colonists  went  there  with  herds  of  cows 
and  horses ;  soon  innumerable  cattle  with  a  letter  branded  in  their 
hides  to  show  the  name  of  their  owner,  roamed  over  the  boundless, 
unfenced  prairies. 


BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  MEXICO 


378 


A  great  many  adventurers  also  came  to  Texas,  men  who  had 
broken  the  laws  of  the  United  States  and  were  afraid  of  its  justice, 
so  that  the  State  contained  many  outlawed  men,  some  of  whom  made 
trouble  among  the  peaceable,  order  loving  colonists.  The  prin¬ 
cipal  American  settler,  and  one  who  had  brought  a  large  colony  to 
Texas,  was  a  man  from  New  England,  named  Stephen  Austin.  If 
you  study  the  map  of  Texas  you  will  see  that  he  has  a  county  and 
town  named  for  him  there. 

The  Americans  were  much  more  enterprising  and  thrifty  than 
the  Mexicans.  Where  they  settled,  the  country  soon  began  to  look 
trim  and  neat,  with  comfortable  houses  and  well  kept  farm-yards. 
The  Mexicans  were  content  to  live  from  generation  to  generation 
in  “  adobe  ”  houses,  houses  built  of  rude  bricks,  made  of  mud 


Mexican  Farm-house. 


dried  in  the  sun.  They  had  little  energy,  and  none  of  the  Yankee 
shrewdness  which  was  apt  to  get  the  better  of  them  in  all  their  bar¬ 
gains.  It  was  quite  natural  that  they  should  begin  to  feel  jealous, 
and  a  little  afraid  of  these  pushing,  enterprising  Yankees.  So 
when  in  1833  the  Americans  held  a  convention,  and  sent  Stephen 
Austin  to  the  city  of  Mexico  to  ask  that  Texas  should  be  admitted 
as  a  State  into  the  Mexican  Union,  they  kept  him  for  months  in  a 
state  of  uncertainty  about  what  answer  they  meant  to  make  him. 


374 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


Austin  got  tired  of  this,  and  wrote  to  the  Texas  people  to  proclaim 
themselves  a  State  without  further  delay..  This  letter  the  Mexicans 
got  hold  of,  and  at  once  put  Austin  in  prison. 

When  the  American  Texans  heard  how  their  petition  had  been 
received,  they  were  up  in  arms  at  once.  Every  American  felt  him¬ 
self  a  match  for  eight  or  ten  Mexi¬ 
cans.  They  got  Sam  Houston  for 
their  leader,  a  man  who  was  brave 
enough  to  lead  a  forlorn  hope.  He 
had  lived  among  the  Indians  as 
their  adopted  son  in  his  boyhood, 
had  fought  under  Andrew  Jackson 
at  New  Orleans,  and  after  the  War 
of  1812  was  over,  had  gone  quietly 
into  civilized  life  and  settled  down 
as  a  lawyer.  All  at  once,  in  mid- 
die  life,  the  old  adventurous  spirit 
broke  out  in  him  again,  and  he 
went  back  to  the  Indians  he  had  known  in  boyhood,  became  one  of 
their  tribe,  and  finally  had  roamed  down  to  Texas  to  become  one  of 
the  cattle  graziers  of  that  vast  territory.  Here  lie  was,  all  ready  to 
lead  the  rebellion  in  Texas. 

There  was  some  sharp  fighting  with  the  Mexican  authorities  for 
several  years.  The  contest  began  in  1836,  and  very  soon  after, 
Texas  declared  herself  an  independent  State,  made  a  government  of 
her  own,  and  chose  Sam  Houston  governor.  Very  soon  she  asked 
the  United  States  to  take  her  in.  But  Martin  Van  Buren,  who  was 
then  president,  objected  strongly.  He  did  not  want  the  United 
States  to  get  into  a  quarrel  with  Mexico  on  account  of  Texas.  So 
the  matter  stood  all  through  Van  Buren’s  time  and  John  Tyler’s 
administration.  There  were  constant  disputes  in  Congress  about 
letting  Texas  come  into  the  Union.  The  Northern  States  said 
“  No,  we  do  not  want  any  more  States  with  slavery.  Texas  is  a 
•slave-holding  country,  and  the  slave  power  is  getting  too  strong  for 
us.  Besides,  we  do  not  want  war.  It  hurts  our  trade  and  makes 
us  poor.”  The  Southern  States  argued  in  favor  of  admitting  Texas 
for  the  very  reasons  that  the  North  urged  to  keep  her  out.  Thus 
the  dispute  waxed  hotter  till  the  year  1845.  Then,  just  before 
Tyler’s  last  Congress  dissolved,  they  voted  to  let  Texas  come  into 
the  Union  as  one  of  the  United  States,  and  amid  the  praises  of  the 


Sam  Houston. 


BEGINNING  OF  THE  MEXICAN  WAR. 


375 


Democrats,  who  were  delighted  with  this  measure,  and  the  curses  of 
the  Whigs,  who  were  furiously  angry  about  it,  the  administration 
of  John  Tyler  ended. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

BEGINNING  OF  THE  MEXICAN  WAR. 

“Old  Zach.” — Troops  on  the  Rio  Grande.  —  Palo  Alto. — The  Prairie  on  Fire. — A  Battle¬ 
field  by  Night.  —  Victory  over  the  Mexicans.  — Crossing  the  Rio  Grande.  —  Scenery  about 
Monterey.  — Capture  of  the  Bishop’s  Palace.  —  Siege  of  the  Town.  — Monterey  taken. 

James  K.  Polk,  eleventh  president  of  the  United  States,  was 
born  in  North  Carolina,  but  had  lived  many  years  in  Tennessee. 
The  votes  of  the  Democratic  party  elected  him  to  the  seat  left  va¬ 
cant  by  John  Tyler.  He  inherited  from  his  predecessor  the  Mexi¬ 
can  War,  which  was  at  once  on  his  hands.  This  history  of  his 
administration  is  the  history  of  this  new  war.  Not  a  war  for  free¬ 
dom  this  time,  but  a  war  for  conquest,  —  a  war  to  extend  the  already 
vast  area  over  which  the  United  States  was  spreading. 

Mexico  had  declared  that  she  should  go  to  war  if  the  United 
States  attempted  to  annex  Texas,  and  it  was  quite  a  foregone  con¬ 
clusion  that  the  act  of  Congress  annexing  this  rebellious  part  of  her 
dominions,  would  pull  down  war  upon  our  heads.  We  had  at  this 
time  a  bluff  old  soldier  in  our  armies  named  Zachary  Taylor,  whom 
the  men  under  his  command  called  “  Old  Zach.”  Soldiers  are  very 
apt  to  give  nicknames  to  their  favorite  leaders,  and  “  Old  Zach  ”  had 
been  a  favorite  commander  ever  since  he  went  to  fight  the  Indian 
tribes  whom  Tecumseh  had  stirred  up  on  our  western  border  in  the 
last  war  with  Great  Britain.  He  was  living  down  in  Louisiana, 
when  orders  came  for  him  to  march  to  Texas  and  hold  it  against  any 
Mexican  troops  who  might  try  to  take  the  State.  The  Rio  Grande, 
which  means  “  great  river,”  was  to  be  the  line  dividing  the  new 
State  from  Mexico,  and  that  was  the  line  on  which  the  government 
at  first  proposed  to  fight  the  Mexicans.  Taylor  was  sent  at  once 
to  bar  all  approach  across  the  Rio  Grande.  He  marched  with  all 
the  men  he  could  raise  ;  not  a  very  large  army,  but  the  Americans 
had  great  faith  in  their  own  prowess,  and  not  so  much  faith  in 
the  valor  of  the  Mexicans.  War  was  not  yet  declared  either,  and 
the  general  hoped  to  get  more  troops  when  war  was  fully  decided 
upon. 


376 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


When  Taylor  and  his  army  reached  the  borders  of  the  Rio  Grande, 
after  their  long  march  over  the  plains  of  Texas,  it  was  beautiful 
spring  weather  ;  the  air  was  fresh  and  sweet,  the  banks  of  the  river 
were  bright  with  flowers  ;  they  fancied  they  could  feel  cool  breezes 
blowing  from  the  sea,  so  delicious  after  their  hard  and  dusty  march. 
On  the  opposite  river  bank  lay  the  Mexican  town  of  Matamoras.  It 
was  bowered  in  trees,  and  looked  like  a  pleasant  village  of  scatter¬ 
ing  houses,  never  intended  to  be  the  scene  of  war.  But  already  the 
shore  in  front  of  the  town  bristled  with  angry  looking  cannon,  and 
the  Mexicans  were  busy  preparing  defenses  along  the  line  of  the 
river.  As  soon  as  he  arrived,  Taylor,  on  his  part,  began  to  defend 
the  eastern  bank  of  the  river  in  dispute,  and  the  first  earth  was  dug 
for  a  fort  opposite  Matamoras,  and  named  Fort  Brown. 

This  was  the  last  of  March.  Taylor  lingered  here  till  May,  yet 
no  news  of  a  declaration  of  war  had  been  received  from  government. 
On  the  1st  of  May  General  Taylor  decided  to  leave  Fort  Brown, 
with  the  main  part  of  his  army,  and  go  to  a  point  farther  down  the 
river,  which  he  feared  was  not  sufficiently  protected.  He  left  a 
small  garrison  in  the  fort,  commanded  by  Major  Brown,  and  a 
battery  commanded  by  Captain  Bragg,  which  afterward  had  an 
opportunity  to  make  itself  famous.  As  soon  as  the  general’s  back 
was  turned,  the  guns  from  Matamoras  opened  on  the  little  fort,  and 
shot  and  shell  rattled  across  the  river.  It  made  a  great  deal  of  noise, 
but  really  did  very  little  damage.  The  American  guns  kept  silent, 
thinking  it  wise  to  save  their  powder,  and  for  four  days  the  enemy 
kept  up  the  siege  with  little  return  of  their  fire  from  the  Amer¬ 
icans,  who  were  short  of  powder,  and  constantly  hoping  General 
Taylor  would  return  and  relieve  them. 

On  the  fifth  morning  of  the  siege  the  garrison  could  see  the  Mex¬ 
icans  strengthening  themselves  for  an  attack,  and  were  awaiting 
it  with  some  anxiety,  when  all  at  once  the  dull  booming  of  distant 
cannon  announced  to  both  sides  that  a  battle  had  begun  elsewhere. 
Besieged  and  besiegers  forgot  their  own  defense  and  attack  in  this 
new  sound,  fraught  with  an  equal  interest  to  both.  It  was  the  roar 
of  the  guns  from  Palo  Alto,  the  first  battle-field  in  the  Mexican 
War,  which  reached  Fort  Brown  and  Matamoras.  Let  us  hasten 
thither  and  see  what  fortune  waits  on  our  arms. 

Palo  Alto  means  “  tall  timber,”  and  the  battle  has  its  name 
from  a  wood  which  skirted  the  plain,  over  which  Taylor’s  troops 
were  marching  on  their  return  to  Fort  Brown,  when  the  Mexicans 


BEGINNING  OF  THE  MEXICAN  WAR. 


377 


burst  upon  their  sight,  drawn  up  to  meet  them,  in  all  the  splendor 
of  battle.  They  shared  the  gorgeous  taste  of  the  native  Indians 
for  bright  colors,  and  the  glitter  and  brilliancy  of  their  uniforms 
almost  dazzled  the  eyes  of  our  soldiers  as  they  first  saw  their  foe 
with  the  fervid  southern  sun  shining  on  their  ranks.  The  Mexicans, 
6,000  strong,  looked  as  if  the  birds  of  their  tropical  forests  had  lent 
them  their  rainbow  hues  for  the  battle,  while  the  Americans,  less 
than  2,300  in  number,  in  their  plain  army  blue,  resembled  the 
cpiiet  snow-birds  of  the  North,  hardly  at  home  in  this  gorgeous 
clime. 

The  battle  began  early  in  the  morning,  and  soon  raged  over  the 
whole  plain.  The  American  artillery  did  good  service,  and  charge 
after  charge  of  the  enemy  was  repulsed  even  from  the  very  mouth 
of  the  guns.  In  the  midst  of  the  battle  the  tall  dry  grass  of  the 
plain  took  fire  from  the  guns,  and  in  a  moment,  to  add  to  the  hor¬ 
ror,  great  sheets  of  flame  and  smoke  rolled  over  the  prairie.  It 
drove  both  armies  before  it,  and  when  it  had  passed  by,  leaving  a 
blackened  waste  behind,  the  Mexicans  had  lost  their  position.  Tay¬ 
lor,  cool  in  every  moment  of  battle,  had  advanced  and  gained  an 
advantage.  The  firing  was  kept  up  till  night,  but  the  Mexican 
volleys  grew  fainter  and  fainter,  and  when  the  day  ended  they  had 
fallen  back  towards  the  river.  That  night  all  slept,  worn  out  with 
the  day’s  strife,  only  a  little  distance  apart.  Can  you  fancy  the 
two  armies,  with  their  cannon  silent,  the  sounds  of  war  hushed, 
lying  on  the  blood-stained,  blackened  field,  under  the  quiet  night 
skyq  ready  to  rise  and  renew  the  scenes  of  carnage  at  the  next 
dawn  ?  All  night  the  cries  of  the  wounded,  who  cannot  sleep,  arise 
from  the  field.  Here  and  there  the  dim  light  of  a  lantern  borne  by 
surgeons  and  their  assistants  seeking  out  those  who  have  fallen, 
gleams  on  the  ghastly  faces,  pale  in  death,  and  on  the  convulsed 
and  agonized  faces  of  the  dying.  It  is  a  horrible  sight,  this  battle¬ 
field,  is  it  not  ? 

Next  morning,  when  the  sun  rose,  it  showed  the  Mexicans  in¬ 
trenched  in  a  deep  ravine  which  crossed  the  road,  their  artillery 
sweeping  the  pass  and  making  approach  seem  impossible.  But 
Taylor’s  men  rose  like  giants  refreshed  by  slumber.  In  one  charge 
they  swept  throught  the  enemyr’s  batteries,  leaped  the  guns,  bayon¬ 
eted  the  gunners,  and  carried  the  day  at  Resaca  de  la  Palma.  ■  So 
the  second  day’s  battle  ended  also  in  victory. 

Although  they  largely  outnumbered  the  Americans,  the  Mexicans 


378 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


were  forced  to  give  way  before  men  who  fought  with  such  fury. 
They  fell  back,  then  retreated,  then  turned  and  ran  for  the  river. 
The  little  garrison  at  Fort  Brown  anxiously  looking  out  for  news, 
beheld  the  enemy  hurrying  pell-mell  for  the  Rio  Grande.  There 
were  no  boats  to  receive  them  except  one  flat  boat,  soon  filled  by 
the  crowding  fugitives.  Many  plunged  in  and  attempted  to  swim  ; 
many  were  trampled  under  the  feet  of  men  and  horses  ;  wild  uproar 
and  confusion  filled  the  river  and  its  banks.  Along  the  opposite 
shore  crowded  the  people  of  Matamoras,  the  sisters,  daughters,  and 
wives  of  those  slain  in  the  battle,  anxiously  straining  their  eyes  for 
the  sight  of  tlieir  friends  who  left  them  a  little  while  before  in 
health  and  hope,  to  meet  their  death  upon  the  field. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

INVASION  OF  MEXICO. 

Army  of  the  West.  —  Conquest  of  New  Mexico.  —  Fremont,  the  Explorer  of  the  Rock}’  Mount¬ 
ains. —  He  enters  California.  — Kit  Carson.  — Fremont  declares  California  an  Independent 
State.  —  The  Army  of  the  Centre.  —  “  Rough  and  Ready.”  —  Bragg’s  Battery.  —  Victory 
of  Buena  Vista.  —  Five  Thousand  Miles’  March. 


Nine  days  after  the  battle  of  Palo  Alto  and  Resaca  de  la  Palma, 
Taylor  and  his  army  crossed  the  Rio  Grande  and  took  up  their 
quarters  in  Matamoras.  All  the  smaller  towns  in  the  vicinity  sur¬ 
rendered  and  were  occupied  by  our  troops.  Henceforth  all  the 
fighting  was  to  be  done  on  Mexican  soil  and  the  war  was  carried 
into  the  towns  and  cities,  to  the  very  firesides  of  the  Mexicans. 

General  Arista  had  been  commanding  at  Matamoras,  but  his  want 
of  success  in  keeping  back  the  Americans  had  made  him  unpopular. 
He  was  now  in  disgrace,  and  General  Ampudia  was  the  officer  com¬ 
manding  the  Mexicans.  During  this  summer  of  1846  Taylor  heard 
that  Ampudia  was  collecting  his  forces  at  Monterey  a  town  among 
the  mountains  of  Sierra  Madre,  and  that  the  town  had  been  fortified 
to  resist  an  attack  from  the  Americans. 

In  August  he  decided  to  march  on  Monterey  and  endeavor  to  take 
it.  General  Worth,  an  able  officer  in  the  United  States  army, 
had  now  joined  Taylor,  and  the  united  forces  amounted  to  about 
9,000.  Of  these  6,500  were  destined  for  the  march  on  Monterey. 

Early  in  September  the  army  reached  the  beautiful  plain  em- 


INVASION  OF  MEXICO. 


879 


bosomed  among  mountains,  on  which  the  city  is  built.  The  San 
Juan  River  encircles  the  pleasant  town  on  one  side,  and  all  about  it 
the  heights  of  the  Sierras  rise  above  the  city,  lying  half  hid  by  its 
clustering  trees.  On  one  of  the  heights,  commanding  the  city,  was 
the  bishop’s  palace,  a  stately  pile  of  white  limestone,  with  the 
green,  white,  and  red  flag  of  the  republic  floating  from  its  top. 
The  palace  and  the  hillside  bristled  with  cannon,  and  on  all  the 
heights  about  the  city,  the  black  yawning  mouths  of  these  instru¬ 
ments  of  death  stood  ready  to  pour  their  volleys  into  the  ranks  of 
the  invading  army.  To  the  north  was  the  stone  citadel,  showing  a 
gun  at  every  loop-hole,  and  affording  an  impregnable  shelter  to  the 
besieged  army  if  all  other  defenses  failed.  To  look  at  her  prepara¬ 
tion  it  seemed  impossible  to  believe  that  any  army  could  take  a  city 
with  every  avenue  so  guarded  as  that  of  Monterey. 

The  Americans  sat  quietly  down  three  miles  from  the  city,  while 
their  officers  settled  on  the  best  mode  of  attack,  and  studied  point 
by  point  the  enemy’s  defenses.  On  the  19th  of  September  the  plans 
were  made  and  the  army  began  to  move.  General  Worth  led  his 
division  around  to  the  west  to  attack  in  the  rear  the  palace  of  the 
bishop,  and  Taylor  with  the  main  army  began  cannonading  the 
centre  of  the  town.  On  the  21st  of  September  the  firing  began 
from  Taylor’s  batteries,  answered  by  the  roar  of  the  great  guns  of 
the  citadel.  All  through  that  day  the  thunder  of  artillery  deafened 
the  ear.  Just  before  dusk  General  Worth  took  the  batteries  on  the 
height  nearest  the  palace  of  the  bishop,  and  turned  the  captured 
guns  against  the  defenses.  At  night  the  soldiers  on  both  sides  lay 
down  to  rest  in  the  midst  of  a  terrific  thunder-storm.  Many  of  the 
Americans,  without  shelter,  lay  on  the  bare  earth,  exposed  to  the 
drenching  rain.  Next  morning,  almost  before  day-break,  the  assault 
on  the  bishop’s  palace  was  made.  It  was  brief,  and  ended  in  vic¬ 
tory.  The  flag  of  Mexico  was  pulled  down,  and  the  “  red,  white, 
and  blue  ”  was  seen  waving  over  the  turrets  of  this  stronghold. 

In  the  mean  time  Taylor’s  army  were  hammering  away  at  the  de¬ 
fenses  in  front  of  the  town.  On  the  morning  of  the  22d  they 
entered  the  streets  of  the  city  and  fought  their  way  inch  by  inch 
towards  the  citadel.  Every  street  was  barricaded  and  protected  by 
cannon,  which  swept  a  deadly  fire  down  the  ranks  of  the  Americans. 
They  literally  dug  their  way  through  the  opposing  barriers,  driving 
the  besieged  army  closer  and  closer  to  the  citadel,  until  they  were 
forced  to  take  refuge  in  its  sheltering  walls.  By  sunset  on  the  22d 


380 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


Taylor’s  army  held  the  town  as  securely  as  Worth  held  the  palace. 
Only  the  bastioned  front  of  the  citadel  opposed  itself  to  the  besieg¬ 
ers,  and  behind  those  walls  lay  General  Ampudia  and  his  army, 
defeated  and  broken  in  numbers  and  courage.  They  had  fought 
bravely,  and  with  the  earnestness  of  men  who  fight  on  their  own 
soil.  Next  morning  when  they  proposed  to  surrender,  General  Tay¬ 
lor  gave  them  generous  terms.  He  allowed  them  to  march  out  of 
the  citadel  with  all  their  side  arms,  and  pledged  himself  not  to  fol¬ 
low  or  attack  them  until  eight  weeks  had  expired.  Thus  on  the 
23d  of  September  the  strong  city  of  Monterey  fell  into  the  hands  of 
our  army.  We  had  paid  for  it  with  one  hundred  and  twenty  men 
killed,  three  hundred  and  sixty-eight  wounded. 

In  the  mean  time,  while  Taylor  was  marching  from  the  Rio 
Grande  to  Monterey,  victorious  in  every  encounter,  the  Ameri¬ 
can  arms  were  gaining 
easy  victories  elsewhere. 
Three  divisions  of  the 

United  States  army  were 
penetrating  into  the  re¬ 
public  of  Mexico,  and 

already  the  United  States 
flag  waved  over  many 
Mexican  towns  in  token 
of  conquest. 

The  first  of  these  three 
divisions  was  the  gallant 
the  West,”  commanded 
by  General  Stephen  Kearney.  It 

started  from  Fort  Leavenworth,  Kan¬ 
sas,  for  its  long  march  to  the  Mexi¬ 
can  border  in  the  month  of  June,  a 
few  weeks  after  Taylor’s  victory  at 
Palo  Alto.  The  destination  of  the 

The  Spanish  Bayonet.  troops  was  the  town  of  Santa  Fe,  the 

largest  in  New  Mexico  and  the  most  famous  trading  place  between 
Mexico,  Texas,  .and  the  United  States. 

Fort  Leavenworth  is  on  the  Missouri  River  in  Kansas,  and  is  now 
surrounded  by  one  of  the  flourishing  cities  of  the  West.  Then  it 
was  a  lonely  military  fort,  far  away  from  civilization,  with  great 
plains  roamed  over  by  the  wolf  and  bison,  stretching  away  to  the 


Arm) 


of 


INVASION  OF  MEXICO 


381 


west  and  south.  Over  these  broad  spreading  plains,  covered  with 
sage  bush,  tufts  of  gray  buffalo  grass,  and  the  sharp  pointed  cactus, 
the  army  took  its  march.  Except  where  an  occasional  river,  bordered 
by  cotton-wood  trees,  crept  slowly  through  the  plain,  the  way  was 
barren  and  treeless.  Sometimes  they  met  vast  herds  of  the  buffalo 
traveling  north  for  the  summer.  At  night  the  howling  of  the  prai¬ 
rie  wolf  often  disturbed  the  slumbers  of  the  camp.  The  only  other 
inhabitant  of  the  plain  were  the  prairie  dogs,  whose  towns  were  built 
thickly  all  along  the  northern  part  of  their  journey.  As  the  sol¬ 
diers  marched  through  these  “  prairie  dog  towns,”  the  bright  eyed 


Prairie  Dogs. 

little  animals  would  sit  erect  on  their  haunches,  blinking  cunningly 
at  the  men,  then  suddenly  turning  tail  would  dart  into  their  holes 
and  disappear  in  the  underground  labyrinth  where  they  dwelt. 

After  a  march  of  more  than  a  month  the  sight  of  the  Arkansas 
River  cheered  the  eyes  of  the  weary  travelers,  and  a  little  rest  at 
Bent's  Fort  on  its  banks  refreshed  them  after  their  long  march. 
From  thence  to  Santa  Fe  the  way  was  less  monotonous,  sometimes 
leading  among  grand  old  mountains  and  scenery  of  surpassing 
beauty.  Early  in  August  they  set  foot  in  the  Territory  of  New 


882 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


Mexico,  the  northern  line  of  the  Mexican  possessions.  Kearney’s 
proceedings  were  executed  with  military  brevity  and  decision. 
Whenever  he  entered  a  town  —  they  were  all  miserable,  badly  built 
villages  of  adobe  houses  in  this  region  — he  summoned  the  alcaid  or 
Mayor  of  the  place,  and  asked  him  to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance  to 
the  United  States,  for  himself  and  the  inhabitants.  The  trembling 
alcaid,  surrounded  by  American  troops,  could  do  no  better  than 
comply,  and  usually  took  the  oath  without  hesitation.  Sometimes 
he  ventured  to  hope  his  religion  should  not  be  interfered  with,  and 
General  Kearney  assured  him  he  might  be  as  devout  a  Roman  Cath¬ 
olic  as  he  liked,  if  he  would  be  true  to  the  United  States.  Thus 
town  after  town  was  left  with  the  stars  and  stripes  flying  above  its 
walls  of  mud  brick,  and  Kearney,  who  was  a  hearty  soldier,  and  not 
unpopular  with  the  Mexicans,  went  triumphantly  on  to  Santa  Fe. 
At  first  this  town  made  preparations  for  defense,  but  hearing  that 
the  country  had  surrendered  without  resistance,  hopeless  of  success 
against  the  invaders,  concluded  to  make  no  show  of  battle.  Kearney 


Mexican  Town. 


marched  peacefully  into  the  town,  conciliated  the  people  with  prom¬ 
ises  of  the  best  possible  treatment  if  they  would  be  faithful  to  the 
government  he  represented,  unfurled  his  flag  from  the  palace  of  the 
Mexican  governor,  and  fired  a  cannon  salute  in  honor  of  his  conquest. 
As  the  sound  reverberated  over  the  scene  of  his  bloodless  victory, 


INVASION  OF  MEXICO. 


385 


Kearney  said  proudly,  “  There,  my  guns  proclaim  that  the  flag  of 
the  United  States  floats  over  the  capital.”  Thus  ended  the  conquest 
•of  New  Mexico. 

After  Kearney’s  success  here  he  took  part  of  his  troops,  leaving 
the  rest  to  guard  his  newly  acquired  possessions,  and  started  to  sub¬ 
due  Upper  California.  That  country  in  the  mean  time  had  been  the 
scene  of  another  conquest,  only  a  little  more  difficult  to  achieve  than 
that  of  New  Mexico. 

In  the  spring  of  1845,  one  year  before  war  was  declared,  a  young 
lieutenant,  named  John  Charles  Fremont,  had  been  given  the  rank 
of  captain  in  the  United  States  army.  There  were  few  officers  who 
deserved  promotion  better.  For  several  years  he  had  been  explor¬ 
ing  the  western  territories  of  his  country  ;  had  crossed  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  climbing  one  of  its  loftiest  peaks  ;  explored  its  mountain 
passes  ;  followed  the  courses  of  unknown  rivers  in  the  west,  and 
; sought  out  a  new  path  to  the  Pacific  Ocean.  No  discoverer,  since 
the  days  of  Lewis  and  Clarke,  had  done  so  much  to  open  up  the 
geography  of  our  western  country,  as  Captain  John  C.  Fremont. 

Soon  after  he  had  received  his  new  rank,  he  set  out  with  a  com¬ 
pany  on  an  expedition  to  Oregon.  His  way  lay  across  the  Sierra 
Nevada  Mountains,  which  separated  the  United  States  from  Upper 
California,  then  a  part  of  the  Mexican  possessions.  Over  these 
mountains  Fremont  took  his  way  with  his  company  of  brave  men, 
and  descended  into  California  in  the  winter  of  1846.  He  went  to 
Monterey,  California,  and  asked  permission  of  the  Mexican  governor 
of  the  province,  to  pass  through  his  territories  on  his  way  to  Oregon. 
But  the  Mexican,  distrusting  all  the  United  States  troops,  although 
the  war  had  not  yet  begun,  refused  his 
permission,  and  acted  as  if  he  believed 
Fremont’s  design  was  a  hostile  one. 

There  was  a  dispute  and  a  close  ap¬ 
proach  to  a  battle  near  Monterey,  but 
Fremont  finally  marched  to  Oregon 
without  any  actual  outbreak  between 
them. 

The  adventures  in  their  journey  to 
Oregon  were  very  interesting.  Once 
the  party  were  attacked  by  Indians 
while  sleeping  peacefully  in  their  tents,  Kit  Carson, 

unconscious  of  danger.  Springing  up  in  the  dark,  they  met  the  sav- 


386 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


ages  in  a  hancl-to-hand  fight,  and  drove  off  the  Indians  after  a 
desperate  straggle.  One  of  Fremont’s  guides  was  the  famous  Kit 
Carson,  who  had  lived  for  years  the  life  of  a  mountaineer  in  these 
wild  regions.  No  story  could  be  dull  in  which  Carson  was  one  of 
the  heroes.  We  cannot  follow  this  little  band  to  Oregon,  but  will 
meet  them  as  they  come  back  to  San  Francisco  Bay  in  the  spring 
of  1846. 

The  first  news  which  then  reached  Captain  FrOnont  was  the  in¬ 
telligence  that  Governor  De  Castro  —  the  very  governor  who  had 
shown  such  open  hostility  to  and  distrust  of  his  expedition  to  Ore¬ 
gon —  was  raising  troops  to  attack  and  drive  out  the  American  set¬ 
tlers  in  California.  Already  war  had  been  declared  between  the 
United  States  and  California,  but  this  news  had  not  yet  reached 
the  distant  shores  of  the  Pacific.  Fremont  at  once  decided  that  the 
rights  of  his  countrymen  settled  there  should  be  maintained,  and  on 
June  1st  he  surprised  and  captured  a  fort  of  the  enemy  at  the  town 
of  Sonoma.  A  few  days  later  he  met  a  party  of  De  Castro’s  men, 
and  a  slight  skirmish  ensued,  in  which,  as  usual,  the  Americans 
were  victorious. '  On  the  4tli  of  J uly  Fremont  called  all  the  Amer¬ 
icans  together  at  this  captured  post  of  Sonoma,  and  declared  Cali¬ 
fornia  a  “  free  and  independent  State.”  A  few  days  later  Commo¬ 
dore  Stockton  of  the  American  navy  hoisted  the  stars  and  stripes 
over  Monterey,  and  declared  it  a  conquered  town.  Fremont  has¬ 
tened  to  join  Stockton,  and  the  two  entered  Los  Angeles,  the  capital 
of  California,  and  took  it  in  the  name  of  the  United  States.  Cal¬ 
ifornia,  largely  settled  by  Americans,  was  easily  brought  under  sub¬ 
jection,  and  there  was  very  little  more  bloodshed  in  this  conquest, 
than  in  that  of  New  Mexico. 

The  third  division  which  contributed  to  our  successes  this  year  was 
the  division  of  General  Wool,  formed  of  Illinois  troops,  and  named 
the  “  Army  of  the  Centre.”  Wool  was  an  officer  in  the  War  of 
1812,  and  had  fought  bravely  on  the  Canada  border,  where  Scott 
had  gained  his  laurels.  He  was  sent  with  his  army  to  invade  the 
province  of  Chihuahua,  at  the  same  time  Kearney  was  sent  to 
New  Mexico.  But  after  a  hot  summer  march  through  Texas,  he 
found  a  high  mountain  wall  which  barred  his  entrance  into  the 
province  he  was  seeking  ;  and  turning  in  a  southerly  direction,  he 
went  to  join  a  part  of  Taylor’s  division  quartered  at  Saltillo,  not  far 
from  Monterey. 

Wool  arrived  at  Saltillo  in  December,  and  found  General  Taylor 


INVASION  OF  MEXICO. 


387 


and  General  Worth  busily  preparing  for  another  battle.  The  com¬ 
mander-in-chief  of  the  whole  Mexican  army  was  gathering  a  force 
of  20,000  men  in  the  capital  of  the  province  of 
San  Luis  Potosi,  with  which  he  hoped  to  crush 
the  Americans  who  had  fought  at  Monterey. 

This  commander  was  General  Santa  Anna,  a 
famous  patriot,  who  had  fought  against  Spain  for 
Mexican  freedom,  had  been  president  of  the  re¬ 
public,  and  was  one  of  their  best  and  bravest 
soldiers.  He  had  already  lost  one  leg  in  battle, 
but  even  thus  disabled  was  a  match  for  many  a 
warrior  with  the  full  complement  of  legs  and  arms. 

It  was  to  aid  in  repulsing  General  Santa  Anna  that  Wool  had 
fortunately  joined  General  Worth  at  Saltillo.  While  they  waited 
for  battle,  news  came  that  General  Scott  had  landed  with  an  army 
at  the  town  of  Vera  Cruz  on  the  borders  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico. 
Orders  were  sent  that  all  the  troops  which  Taylor  could  spare 
should  be  sent  there  at  once.  This  at  a  time  when  Santa  Anna’s 
army,  reported  to  be  of  overwhelming  numbers,  was  just  ready  to 
engage  him.  But  “  old  Zacli  Taylor,”  or  old  “  Rough  and  Ready,” 
as  he  was  called  after  his  Mexican  victories,  was  too  good  a  soldier 
to  grumble.  He  sent  all  his  troops  except  5,500  to  Scott,  and  tak¬ 
ing  up  a  strong  position  in  a  narrow  mountain  valley  on  the  road 
between  Monterey  and  Saltillo,  waited  for  the  enemy.  The  place 
where  he  intrenched  himself  was  hemmed  in  by  rugged  mountains 
and  narrowed  to  a  gorge  hardly  wider  than  an  ordinary  road,  called 
the  pass  of  Angostura.  The  valley  was  known  as  Buena  Vista  or 
“Fine  View,”  and  was  a  very  strong  point  for  the  occupation  of  an 
army.  Here,  on  the  morning  of  the  22d  of  February,  the  day  our 
nation  celebrates  as  Washington’s  birtli-day,  —  the  armies  came  in 
sight  of  each  other.  It  was  not  until  the  23d  that  the  fighting 
began.  The  American  battle-cry  was,  “  To  the  memory  of  Washing¬ 
ton,”  and  inspired  by  that  memory,  every  man  did  his  best. 

I  have  told  you  that  Taylor’s  whole  army  was  5,500.  Santa  Anna 
admitted  that  he  had  20,000  men.  With  such  a  difference  we  could 
never  have  hoped  for  victory,  if  the  position  of  Buena  Vista  had  not 
been  almost  impregnable.  It  was  like  a  strong  castle  which  a  few 
men  could  hold  against  immense  numbers.  The  battery  stationed 
in  the  pass  of  Angostura  swept  down  any  force  which  ventured  near 
its  narrow  throat. 


388 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


Still  it  was  a  terrible  contest,  and  before  night  the  mountain 
slopes  were  red  with  human  blood.  Many  times  the  scale  of  victory 
hung  so  evenly  balanced  that  the  slightest  turn  would  have  given 
the  day  to  Santa  Anna.  Once  near  the  day’s  close,  a  party  of 
American  cavalry  were  contending  with  an  overpowering  force  of  the 
enemy  in  a  deep  gully  which  entered  the  valley.  Taylor  was 
watching  with  intense  anxiety  the  efforts  of  the  troops  in  repelling 
the  attack.  If  they  were  defeated  at  this  point,  the  enemy  would 
rush  in,  in  such  numbers  that  the  rout  of  the  Americans  appeared 
inevitable.  At  this  moment  Captain  Bragg  with  his  battery,  the 
one  that  had  seen  service  at  Fort  Brown  in  the  early  stages  of  the 
war,  was  ordered  to  the  relief  of  the  cavalry.  He  advanced  and 
loading  his  guns  with  grape-shot  poured  one  volley  into  the  enemy’s 
ranks.  They  wavered  for  a  moment  and  then  charged.  Again  the 
grape  poured  in  among  them,  cutting  them  down  like  grass  before 
the  sickle.  Still  the  ranks  closed  up  with  new  men  and  the  advance 
continued.  “  A  little  more  grape,  Captain  Bragg,”  said  General 
Taylor,  coolly,  as  for  the  third  time  the  Mexicans  advanced.  That 
“little  more”  was  too  much  for  the  enemy.  Their  ranks  were 
broken  and  dispersed,  and  from  that  moment  victory  was  with  the 
Americans.  Santa  Anna  fell  back,  leaving  his  dead  and  wounded 
behind  him.  He  could  not  recover  his  army  sufficiently  to  make 
another  attack,  and  soon  retreated,  leaving  Taylor  and  his  allies, 
Worth  and  Wool,  covered  with  glory.  This  was  the  last  battle  of 
Taylor's  campaign  in  Mexico.  Scott  was  already  advancing  on  the 
capital,  and  with  his  movements  we  must  now  occupy  ourselves. 
Taylor,  feeling  that  his  work  was  done,  returned  home,  to  hear  his 
name  sounded  as  the  “  hero  of  Monterey  and  Buena  Vista.” 

After  Kearney’s  army  had  entered  Santa  F6,  one  division  of  it 
was  at  once  sent  off  to  join  General  Wool,  who  everybody  supposed 
had  gone,  according  to  directions,  to  the  province  of  Chihuahua 
lying  directly  south  of  New  Mexico.  This  division,  of  eight  hun¬ 
dred  men  was  given  to  Colonel  Doniphan  of  St.  Louis.  It  was 
composed  of  men  who  were  used  to  long  marches,  for  they  had 
already  traveled  from  Leavenworth  to  Santa  Fe,  a  march  of  nine 
hundred  miles.  In  coming  from  the  north  they  kept  in  the  rear  of 
the  high  mountains  which  had  barred  Wool’s  progress  from  the  east 
and  caused  him  to  make  his  detour  to  the  south  to  join  Taylor. 
They  found  instead  a  barren  waste,  often  without  roads  or  any  land¬ 
marks  by  which  the  way  could  be  tracked.  To  set  out  thus  into 


SCOTT’S  MARCH  TO  MEXICO. 


389 


the  heart  of  an  enemy’s  country,  with  so  small  a  force,  required 
sound  judgment  and  clear  common  sense,  as  much  as  bravery. 
Doniphan  led  his  men  to  Chihuahua,  the  State  where  once  flour¬ 
ished  the  richest  mining  of  Mexico.  From  these  almost  inex¬ 
haustible  veins  of  ore,  the  race  of  Montezuma  had  drawn  the 
rich  metal  which  decorated  their  palaces  when  Cortez  came  there 
a  conqueror.  Still  later,  the  Spaniards  had  compelled  the  natives 
to  work  the  mines,  and  for  a  century  flooded  Spain  with  their  sup¬ 
plies  of  treasure.  When  Doniphan  entered  the  province  with  his 
men,  it  contained  only  scattered  villages  of  miserable  houses, 
with  inhabitants  without  energy  or  enterprise. 

He  did  not  reach  the  capital  of  Chihuahua  altogether  without 
opposition,  since  the  Mexican  had  several  times  given  battle.  Once 
as  his  men  were  gathering  wood  for  their  camp  fires,  the  enemy 
came  upon  them,  but  fled  at  the  first  attack  from  the  Americans. 
Again,  in  crossing  the  Sacramento,  a  small  tributary  of  the  Rio 
Grande,  the  passage  was  hotly  contested,  and  more  than  a  hundred 
Mexicans  were  killed  there. 

When  Doniphan  reached  Chihuahua  he  learned  that  Wool  had 
not  been  there,  but  had  gone  instead  to  Satillo.  He  immediately 
followed,  and  reached  that  place  to  find  the  battle  of  Buena  Vista 
fought  and  won,  Taylor’s  campaign  ended,  and  the  old  hero  prepar¬ 
ing  to  go  home.  There  was  nothing  for  Colonel  Doniphan’s  soldiers 
to  do  but  march  quickly  to  the  Rio  Grande,  where  they  took  ship  for 
New  Orleans,  and  were  there  mustered  out  of  service.  So  ended 
one  of  the  longest  marches  in  history.  In  one  year  this  corps  com¬ 
manded  by  Doniphan  had  marched  5,000  miles,  over  a  country  of 
which  the  geography  was  almost  unknown. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

SCOTT’S  MARCH  TO  MEXICO. 

The  Fortress  of  San  J uan  D’Ulloa.  —  Vera  Cruz.  —  The  Road  to  the  Mexico.  —  Cerro  Gordo  or 
“  Big  Hill.”  —  The  Ascent  of  the  Hill.  —  In  the  Cordilleras.  — The  Defenses  of  Mexico.  — 
The  Hill  at  Contreras. — The  Bridge  at  Churubusco. —  The  King’s  Mill. — Grasshopper 
Hill. —  School-boys’  Defense  of  their  Academy.  —  Entry  into  Mexico.  —  End  of  War. 

The  town  of  Vera  Cruz  in  Mexico  was  accounted  one  of  the 
strongest  places  in  all  the  republic  of  the  south.  It  was  a  well 
built  city,  lying  on  the  shores  of  the  Gulf,  just  where  it  curves  deep- 


390 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


est  into  the  land,  and  was  protected  by  the  famous  fortress  of  San 
Juan  D’Ulloa,  now  more  than  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  old. 
This  old  castle  was  situated  on  a  bar  half  a  mile  from  the  city,  with 

guns  pointing  from  every  side,  threat¬ 
ening  to  sweep  any  fleet  out  of  the 
water  that  should  venture  within  can¬ 
non  range.  Vera  Cruz  also  had  guns 
mounted  at  every  assailable  point, 
and  flattered  herself  that  she  could 
not  be  taken  by  any  enemy.  It 
was  in  front  of  this  city  and  castle 
that  General  Scott  with  his  grand 
“Army  of  Invasion  ”  sat  down  for  a  siege  in  March,  1847.  Scott 
had  been  joined  by  Generals  Twiggs,  Pillow,  and  Quitman,  with 
their  divisions.  They  had  been  part  of  General  Taylor’s  army  and 
were  sent  in  answer  to  the  demand  for  troops.  After  Buena  Vista, 
General  Worth  also  joined  Scott,  whose  forces  now  numbered  about 
12,000. 

These  troops  had  been  landed  on  a  barren  coast,  covered  with 
hillocks  of  sand,  three  miles  below  the  city.  There,  amid  terrific 
gales  called  “  northers,”  not  unlike  the  simoons  of  the  desert,  the 
soldiers  worked  day  and  night  on  their  trenches,  getting  ready  to 
bombard  the  city.  So  fierce  were  these  “  northers,”  that  a  man 
lying  down  to  rest  would  in  a  few  minutes  be  covered  out  of  sight 
by  heaped  up  sand,  and  the  hillocks  were  constantly  shifting  their 
places  under  the  influence  of  the  wind.  In  spite  of  difficulties  the 
trenches  were  made,  batteries  planted,  and  the  cannon  began  its 
assault  on  town  and  castle.  Roar  answered  roar,  till  the  ear  grew 
deaf  in  listening  to  these  thunder  peals,  while  flash  and  smoke  blinded 
the  eyes,  and  filled  the  whole  air  with  alternate  light  and  darkness. 
For  nine  days  this  bombardment  continued,  till  the  governor  of 
Vera  Cruz  sent  out  offers  to  surrender.  Both  town  and  castle  gave 
up,  and  on  the  29th  of  March  Scott  entered  Vera  Cruz  in  person, 
and  sent  a  garrison  to  hold  the  castle.  The  greatest  stronghold  on 
the  gulf  coast  was  in  possession  of  the  Americans. 

The  plan  of  the  commander-in-chief  had  for  its  principal  aim  the 
capture  of  the  city  of  Mexico,  the  capital  of  the  republic.  This 
was  the  ancient  city  into  which  Cortez  had  ridden  in  the  pride  of 
conquest.  It  was  the  ancient  seat  of  the  Aztecs,  the  site  of  the 
palaces  of  the  Montezumas,  one  of  the  oldest  cities  on  this  conti- 


SCOTT’S  MARCH  TO  MEXICO. 


891 


General  Scott. 


nent.  It  was  built  in  a  beautiful  plain  lying  in  the  midst  of  the 
Cordilleras  Mountains,  and  watered  by  the  streams  from  its  sides. 
These  mountain  courses  had  formed  numer¬ 
ous  lakes,  which  gemmed  the  plain  with 
their  clear  blue  waters,  making  the  contrast 
with  the  bright  greenness  of  the  plain  one  of 
remarkable  beauty.  In  the  middle  of  this 
plain  lay  the  capital  city,  the  pride  of  all 
Mexico. 

The  road  thither  from  Vera  Cruz,  through 
which  Scott  prepared  to  march,  wound 
among  rugged  and  steep  mountains.  Be¬ 
tween  the  two  cities  lay  the  heights  of  Cerro 
Gordo  (where  Santa  Anna  now  lurked  with  his  army),  the  strong 
fortress  of  Perote,  the  walled  town  of  Puebla,  all  prepared  to  re¬ 
sist  invasion.  At  the  end  of  this  perilous  way  was  Mexico,  every 
point  guarded  and  double  guarded  against  the  expected  attack. 

Cerro  Gordo  was  the  nearest  point  that  opposed  Scott’s  advance. 
Cerro  Gordo,  which  means  “  big  hill,”  was  a  height  one  thousand 
feet  above  the  plain,  from  which  the  road  ascended  over  the  mount¬ 
ain-spur  of  the  Cordilleras.  Over  this  road  Scott  meant  to  pass, 
and  right  in  his  way  stood  the  stony  castle  of  Cerro  Gordo,  which 
crowned  the  topmost  point  of  the  hill,  while  all  about  was  battery 
upon  battery  held  by  Santa  Anna  and  his  army  of  fifteen  thousand. 

To  advance  in  the  face  of  such  a  fire  as  would  meet  the  troops 
from  that  castle  and  the  mountain  slopes  around,  was  more  than 
madness.  Scott  did  not  propose  to  lead  his  soldiers  into  the  jaws  of 
death.  He  ordered  instead  that  a  new  road  should  be  cut  in  the 
rear,  creeping  up  behind  the  enemy  toward  the  key  to  the  position, 
the  castle  of  Cerro  Gordo.  For  three  days,  as  silently  and  surely 
as  ants  and  moles  dig  in  the  earth,  the  men  worked,  without  being 
discovered  by  the  enemy.  Then  it  was  too  late  to  stop  them. 
They  already  commanded  a  position  which  overlooked  all  but  the 
castle.  All  night  on  the  night  of  the  17th  of  April  Twiggs’s  divis¬ 
ion  were  slowly  and  painfully  dragging  the  guns  of  their  battery 
up  this  height.  When  all  was  done  they  sank  exhausted  on  the 
ground  to  catch  a  brief  slumber  before  the  battle. 

At  day-break  on  the  18th  they  were  all  up  and  stirring.  Twiggs’s 
division  on  the  left,  Pillow  in  front,  they  march  on  the  enemy.  Up 
the  very  face  of  the  steep — so  steep  that  the  soldiers  clutch  at  twigs 


392 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


and  bushes  to  aid  tlieir  ascent  —  climb  Colonel  Harney  and  his 
regiment  to  storm  the  fortress  on  the  top.  The  enemy’s  guns  belch 
fire  and  smoke  in  their  faces.  The  front  rank,  wounded  and  dead, 
fall  and  roll  back  down  the  hill,  under  the  feet  of  their  advancing 
comrades.  The  ranks  fill  up  and  press  on  without  wavering,  till 
the  height  is  gained.  They  enter  the  works,  pull  down  the  flag  of 
green,  white,  and  red,  and  the  “  red,  white,  and  blue”  is  hoisted  in 
its  place.  The  day  is  over,  and  the  second  stronghold  between  the 
Gulf  and  Mexico  is  in  the  hands  of  our  army. 

Santa  Anna  and  his  army  fled  beyond  pursuit.  They  did  not 
wait  to  defend  Perote  or  Puebla,  but  went  on  to  Mexico  without 
delay.  The  last  of  April  Worth  entered  Perote  and  captured  im¬ 
mense  stores  of  arms  and  ammunition.  With  hardly  a  breath  of  re¬ 
sistance  he  rode  into  Puebla.  By  the  middle  of  May  every  strong 
point  except  Mexico  was  occupied,  and  General  Scott  waited  to  re¬ 
fresh  himself  in  the  pleasant  old  city  of  Puebla  before  his  final 
attack,  which  would  end  his  campaign  in  Mexico. 

Scott  was  in  Puebla  in  August.  He  was  not  wasting  his  time 
here  in  inglorious  ease,  but  stayed,  endeavoring  to  patch  up  his 
broken  army,  in  which  disease  and  death  had  made  such  havoc  that 
the  regiments  were  mere  skeletons,  and  the  great  army  had 
dwindled  to  5,000  able  men.  All  the  road  was  marked  by  hospitals, 
where  the  sick  were  left  with  little  hope  of  recovery.  Something 
in  this  air,  clear  and  pure  as  it  seemed,  among  mountain  tops,  was 
fatal  to  American  constitutions. 

In  August,  the  army — General  Twiggs  in  advance  —  left 
Puebla.  Reinforcements  under  General  Franklin  Pierce  and  Gen¬ 
eral  Cadwallader  had  arrived  from  Vera  Cruz,  and  with  an  army 
swelled  to  nearly  11,000,  Scott  decided  to  advance.  On  the  fourth 
day  of  the  month  they  reached  the  highest  point  of  the  mountain 
road  leading  to  their  goal ;  looking  down  the  slope  they  saw  at  their 
feet  the  beautiful  plain  of  Mexico  gemmed  with  silver,  sparkling 
lakes,  and  bright  green  fields,  while  in  the  centre,  like  a  pearl  in  its 
setting,  lay  the  famous  city  of  Mexico. 

On  the  18th  of  August  Scott  encamped  with  General  Worth’s 
corps  at  San  Augustine,  a  village  nine  miles  from  the  walls  of 
Mexico.  Twiggs,  Pillow,  and  Quitman,  with  their  divisions,  were 
in  the  vicinity.  The  final  struggle  was  close  at  hand.  In  front  of 
our  army,  five  miles  away,  the  camp  of  General  Valencia  with  his 
6,000  men,  the  very  flower  of  the  Mexican  soldiery,  whitened 


SCOTT’S  MARCH  TO  MEXICO. 


893 


the  hill-sides  of  Contreras.  The  crest  of  the  hill  was  black  with  a 
battery  of  twenty-two  great  guns.  Still  nearer  the  city,  on  one  of 
the  main  avenues  of  approach,  was  the  hamlet  of  Churubusco,  lying 
on  a  little  stream  which  bore  the  same  name.  Across  this  stream 
was  a  bridge  flanked  with  cannon.  A  line  of  guns  ran  from  the 
bridge’s  head  to  an  old  gray  convent-church,  now  turned  into  a  cit¬ 
adel,  mounting  guns  at  every  available  loop-hole.  Between  these 
three  guarded  points  were  great  beds  of  lava,  with  sharp  and  jag¬ 
ged  points,  making  a  march  of  soldiery  over  it  next  to  impossible. 
Inside  this  triangle  of  fortifications  was  Santa  Anna,  with  his  main 
army,  12,000  strong.  Such  were  the  obstacles  which  must  be 
overcome  in  the  first  advance  towards  Mexico.  To  take  the  hill 
and  battery  at  Contreras,  carry  the  bridge  and  hamlet  at  Churu¬ 
busco,  force  Santa  Anna  to  fall  back  nearer  the  city,  was  plainly 
the  thing  to  be  done  before  our  army  could  control  the  main  road  to 
Mexico. 

The  night  of  the  19th  of  August  was  planned  for  the  attack  on 
Contreras.  It  was  a  dreary  night,  a  cold  rain  drenching  the  officers, 
and  men,  who  lay  without  shelter,  too  tired  to  cook  their  suppers, 
and  too  wet  to  sleep.  Lying  hid  behind  some  temporary  intrench- 
ments,  built  to  screen  themselves  from  the  enemy,  they  waited  the 
approach  of  day.  In  the  first  gray  of  the  morning,  a  part  of 
Twiggs’s  army,  led  by  General  Persifer  Smith,  crept  stealthily  into 
a  ravine  which  partly  encircled  Contreras.  Their  approach  was  so 
quiet,  and  conducted  so  secretly,  that  they  made  half  the  circuit  of 
the  hill,  climbed  the  slope,  and  were  in  the  rear  of  the  Mexicans,  in 
a  position  almost  between  the  main  post  of  their  army  and  the  bat¬ 
teries, before  they  were  seen.  In  fifteen  minutes  from  the  time  they 
were  discovered,  they  had  taken  the  guns,  broken  the  ranks  of  the 
enemy,  and  were  following  them  down  the  hill  in  hot  pursuit  to¬ 
wards  Mexico.  They  did  not  give  up  the  chase  until  they  heard' 
the  roar  of  guns  at  Churubusco,  where  Worth’s  corps  was  already 
storming  the  bridge’s  head.  Then  they  turned  to  mingle  in  this, 
new  tide  of  battle,  steadily  advancing  towards  the  walls  of  the  city. 

Worth  was  fighting  gallantly  at  the  bridge.  Twiggs  ordered  his 
men  to  storm  the  church,  a  strong  building,  and  capable  of  making  a 
gallant  defense.  In  the  rear  of  the  church,  on  the  open  field,  sev¬ 
eral  thousand  of  Santa  Anna’s  men  were  engaged  with  the  brigades 
of  Pierce  and  Shields.  Thus  three  battles  were  raging  at  once  in 
three  different  points  about  the  doomed  village.  Two  hours  and  a 


394 


THE  STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


half  of  this  fierce  contest,  and  a  great  shout  proclaimed  that  the 
bridge  had  given  way,  and  Worth’s  troops  were  rushing  over  vic¬ 
torious.  Half  an  hour  more  and  the  white  flag  of  surrender  flut¬ 
tered  from  the  convent  walls.  Still  a  little  later,  and  the  corps  of 
Shields  were  pursuing  the  Mexicans  along  the  road  to  the  city. 
The  impulsive  Captain  Philip  Kearney,  his  left  arm  hanging 
wounded  at  his  side,  followed  so  close  at  the  enemy’s  heels  that  he 
only  reined  up  his  horse  at  the  very  gates  of  Mexico,  and  was 
obliged  to  ride  back  again  to  rejoin  his  corps.  When  the  sun  set 
on  the  evening  of  the  20th  of  August,  Contreras  and  Churubusco 
were  both  in  possession  of  the  Americans. 

The  day  after  these  victories  Scott  advanced  to  Tacubaya,  only 
two  miles  and  a  half  from  the  city.  A  messenger  met  him,  bearing 
a  flag  from  Santa  Anna,  who  had  retreated  behind  the  city  walls. 
He  asked  an  armistice,  or  cessation  of  fighting,  for  a  short  time, 
while  an  American  commissioner,  who  had  arrived  from  Washing¬ 
ton,  might  talk  with  the  Mexican  government  about  peace.  Scott 
waited  till  the  7th  of  September,  and  then  believing  that  Santa 
Anna  had  no  real  intention  of  making  peace,  but  was  strengthen¬ 
ing  himself  with  a  view  to  further  hostilities,  he  declared  the  armis¬ 
tice  over,  and  proceeded  to  remove  the  last  obstacles  to  his  entrance 
into  Mexico. 

The  main  barrier  now  was  the  heights  of  Chapultepec,  or  “  Grass¬ 
hopper  Hill,”  a  rocky  precipice,  on  which  was  the  military  college 
of  Mexico,  now  turned  into  a  fortress,  very  strong  and  formidable. 
At  the  foot  of  these  heights,  about  two  thirds  of  a  mile  from  Scott’s 
camp,  were  two  stone  buildings,  well  guarded.  The  most  important 
of  these  was  Molino  del  Key,  which  means  “  The  king’s  mill.”  It 
was  filled  with  arms  and  supplies  of  war,  and  a  strong  force  rested 
there.  A  quarter  of  a  mile  distant  in  a  straight  line,  was  the  Casa 
de  Mata,  another  stone  building  also  occupied  by  the  Mexicans ; 
while  between  the  two  buildings  and  connecting  them,  were  sta¬ 
tioned  heavy  batteries.  This  strongly  fortified  line  guarded  the 
foot  of  Chapultepec. 

Three  o’clock  in  the  morning  of  the  8th  of  September,  the  twi¬ 
light  not  yet  gray  in  the  east,  the  troops  were  marching  to  attack 
this  line.  Their  orders  were  to  attack  and  capture  the  two  build¬ 
ings  and  the  batteries,  destroy  all  stores  found  in  the  strongholds, 
and  then  fall  back  to  their  encampment.  Chapultepec  was  not  to 
be  stormed  that  day. 


SCOTT’S  MARCH  TO  MEXICO. 


395 


The  army  had  learned  to  obey  orders  literally.  During  the  whole 
war  to  plan  the  capture  of  a  fortification,  had  been  only  followed  by 
the  execution  of  the  plan.  The  men  had  grown  to  believe  that  vic¬ 
tory  was  always  with  their  army,  and  this  belief  no  doubt  aided  to 
success.  The  battle  of  Molino  del  Rey  was  no  exception.  The 
King’s  Mill  was  taken  and  sacked.  Casa  de  Mata  also  was  taken, 
and  before  evening  the  cannon  of  the  enemy’s  batteries  enriched 
Scott’s  camp  at  Tacubaya.  Only  the  fortress  crowned  heights  of 
Chapultepec  remained. 

Chapultepec,  as  I  said  before,  was  a  rocky  hill,  one  hundred  and 
fifty  feet  high.  On  three  sides  it  was  a  rocky  precipice,  too  steep 
to  climb.  On  the  west  it  sloped  more  gradually  to  the  plain,  and 
was  quite  thickly  wooded.  A  stone  wall  surrounded  its  base,  and 
a  splendid  building  with  domed  roof,  over  which  could  be  seen  fly¬ 
ing  the  tri-color  of  Mexico,  surmounted  it.  It  remained  now  the 
forlorn  hope  of  the  Mexicans.  After  this,  nothing  but  the  city  walls 
could  oppose  the  victorious  course  of  their  enemies. 

All  night,  on  the  11th  of  September,  the  Americans  were  engaged 
in  planting  batteries  at  the  point  from  which  they  would  do  most 
damage  to  the  fortress.  All  next  day  these  batteries  rained  shot  and 
shell  on  the  roof,  the  battlements,  the  walls  of  the  beautiful  building. 
At  night,  when  .the  firing  stopped,  many  a  ragged  aperture  in  roof 
and  side  showed  how  sure  had  been  the  destructive  work  of  the  guns. 

The  next  day  Scott  decided  to  storm  the  heights.  Two  columns, 
one  under  Pillow,  the  other  commanded  by  Quitman,  were  to  ap¬ 
proach  from  points  as  widely  diverging  as  the  ascent  would  admit. 
They  were  each  led  by  an  advance  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  men, 
furnished  with  ladders  to  scale  the  walls  of  the  building. 

Up  they  go,  straight  up  the  heights,  in  the  very  mouths  of  the 
cannon.  Pillow  falls  wounded  at  the  head  of  his  column.  “  Take 
me  up,”  he  begs  his  soldiers,  “  that  I  may  be  in  at  the  victory.” 
His  soldiers  carry  him  up,  still  under  the  terrible  fire.  They  gain 
the  top  of  the  heights,  the  ladders  are  thrown  against  the  walls. 
The  men  scramble  over,  pell-mell,  and  meet  the  Mexicans  hand  to 
hand,  inside  the  building.  Among  its  defenders  are  a  hundred  boys, 
from  ten  to  twenty  years  old,  the  students  of  the  military  school, 
fighting  like  lions  to  defend  the  walls,  which  only  a  little  while  be¬ 
fore  had  been  the  scene  of  peaceful  study,  or  of  mock  battle.  “  They 
were  pretty  little  fellows,  and  fought  gallantly,”  says  one  of  our  own 
officers,  who  was  there  that  day.  “  Pretty  little  fellows  !  ”  I  am 


396 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


sad  when  I  think  of  their  faces  dabbled  with  blood,  or  convulsed 
with  the  agony  of  a  gunshot  wound,  or  when  I  think  of  the  mothers 
whose  sons,  hardly  more  than  babies,  were  in  that  cruel  fight.  Soon 
the  waiting  army  below  gives  a  great  shout,  as  they  see  the  stars 
and  stripes  go  up  over  the  dome  in  token  of  victory  ;  and  thus  the 
last  battle  of  the  Mexican  War  is  ended. 

That  night  Santa  Anna  fled,  with  the  government  and  all  the 
officers  of  the  republic.  Next  morning,  before  day-break,  the  city 
officers  waited  upon  Scott  to  tell  him  there  need  be  no  more  slaughter. 
The  city  was  his.  By  seven  o’clock  on  that  morning,  the  14th  of 
September,  1847,  General  Scott,  followed  by  his  army,  rode  into 
the  grand  square  of  the  city.  Once  more  Mexico  was  conquered. 
From  their  first  entrance  into  the  republic,  our  soldiers  had  carried 
everything  before  them.  A  succession  of  victories  marked  their 
course  from  the  Rio  Grande. 

The  Mexicans  were  glad  to  accept  peace  on  our  own  terms.  By 
February  2,  1848,  the  two  nations  signed  a  treaty  by  which  we 
gained  an  undisputed  right  to  Texas  and  the  new  Territories  of  Cal¬ 
ifornia  and  New  Mexico.  For  almost  one  hundred  years  the  United 
States  has  been  a  nation.  The  Mexican  War  is  the  first  and  only 
war  which  she  has  waged  to  extend  her  borders.  Let  us  hope  in 
the  name  of  humanity  that  it  may  be  the  last. 

While  we  were  fighting  the  Mexicans,  we  settled  peacefully  a 
dispute  with  Great  Britain  which  might  have  led  to  another  war,  if 
we  had  not  been  amicably  disposed  towards  her.  The  dispute  was 
about  our  northern  boundary  line  in  Oregon.  The  United  States 
had  claimed  that  its  Territory  of  Oregon  extended  north  to  the  fifty- 
fourth  degree  of  latitude.  You  will  see  by  looking  on  the  map  that 
this  brought  in  a  good  slice  of  what  is  now  the  British  possessions. 
In  1846,  just  as  the  Mexican  War  began,  we  signed  an  agreement 
to  take  the  forty-ninth  degree  of  latitude  for  our  boundary  line,  and 
so  the  matter  ended. 

The  last  event  of  Polk’s  administration  was  the  admission  of  the 
thirtieth  State  into  the  Union.  This  was  Wisconsin,  which  had 
been  growing  in  population  ever  since  it  had  been  made  a  Territory 
twelve  37ears  before. 

Already  the  presidential  election  was  at  hand.  Polk’s  work  was 
over.  His  administration  had  seen  the  war  begun  and  finished,  and 
the  president  in  whose  time  it  was  all  accomplished,  went  quietly 
into  retirement,  and,  like  most  other  presidents,  sank  into  the  obscu¬ 
rity  in  which  the  life  of  any  private  citizen  is  passed. 


THE  NEW  ELDORADO. 


397 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

THE  NEW  ELDORADO. 


General  Taylor  made  President.  —  Gold  in  California.  —  The  Gold  Fever.  —  Death  of  Taylor. 
—  Fillmore  succeeds  him.  —  Election  of  Franklin  Pierce. 


The  Whigs  who  had  failed  by  Harrison’s  death  to  get  the  gov¬ 
ernment  into  their  hands,  and  who  had  been  the  party  out  of  power 
for  so  many  years,  looked  about  carefully  for  a  man  to  represent 
them  in  the  election  of  1848,  who  would  be  sure  to  get  votes  enough 
to  make  him  president.  General  Zachary  Taylor  seemed  to  be 
the  man.  He  was  honest  and  sincere.  He  was  covered  with  glory 
won  in  the  recent  war.  The  soldiers  he  had  led  to  victory  would 
all  vote  for  “  Old  Rough  and  Ready,”  and  this  name  given  him  in 
the  Mexican  War  was  the  catch- word  of  the  new  political  campaign. 
It  helped  no  doubt  to  elect  him,  for  a  man’s  popularity  is  often 
greatly  aided  by  some 
familiar  title,  which  brings 
him  closer  to  the  hearts 
of  the  people.  Amid  the 
great  joy  of  the  Whigs, 

Taylor  began  his  political 
government  as  twelfth 
president  of  the  United 
States. 

When  California  was 
joined  to  our  territory, 
nobody  supposed  we  had 
made  a  very  valuable  ac¬ 
quisition.  To  be  sure  she 
had  a  fine  strip  of  the 
Pacific  coast,  with  several 
good  harbors,  and  inter¬ 
secting  the  mountains  she 
had  numerous  fertile  val¬ 
leys  offering  good  farming 
lands.  But  the  prospect 
of  settlement  there  seemed 
remote,  and  likely  to  be 
the  work  of  years.  In  February,  1848,  however,  the  very  month 


398 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY 


in  which  Mexico  and  the  United  States  signed  their  treaty,  an 
event  took  place  which  gave  an  impulse  to  emigration  to  the  Pacific, 
and  made  California  an  important  State.  An  American  resident  of 
California  named  Captain  Sutter,  who  had  a  great  “  ranche  ” — as 
the  California  settlers  called  their  farms  —  in  the  Sacramento 
Valley,  sent  a  man  up  the  river  to  run  a  mill  built  upon  its  banks. 
In  the  sands  of  the  region  where  he  was  at  work,  this  man  discov¬ 
ered  some  glittering  yellow  particles.  It  occurred  to  him  that  it 
might  be  gold  that  shone  so  in  the  sunshine,  and  he  was  curious 
enough  about  it  to  submit  it  to  the  test.  It  turned  out  to  be  pure 
gold,  and  from  that  hour  the  fortune  of  California  was  made.  You 


San  Francisco  in  1849. 


can  hardly  imagine  the  excitement  that  followed  this  discovery. 
People  from  every  part  of  the  United  States,  from  England,  France, 
Germany,. even  from  the  unsocial  continent  of  Asia,  were  landed, 
ship-load  after  ship-load,  upon  the  coast  of  California.  In  1849  the 
little  Spanish  settlement  of  San  Francisco,  with  its  scattering  adobe 
houses  and  its  old  mission  church,  became  a  swarming  city  of  tents, 
wooden  shanties,  and  unpainted  hotels,  all  filled  to  overflowing  with 
new-comers  to  the  land  of  gold,  the  new  “Eldorado.”  The  whole 
surface  of  the  country  for  miles  and  miles  around  where  gold  was 
first  found,  was  torn  up  by  the  eager  seekers  after  wealth.  Gold- 
dust  was  used  in  place  of  coined  money,  and  prices  were  so  enor- 


Scenery  in  California  —  Yosemite  Falls. 


2b 


. 


. 


■ 


THE  NEW  ELDORADO. 


401 


mous  that  they  sound  like  fables.  Men  left  their  homes  and  families 
in  the  East  to  seek  their  fortunes  here.  The  greater  part  failed  in  their 
rsearch,  or  if  they  found  wealth,  found  it  in  other  ways  than  digging 
for  it  in  the  earth.  The  whole  story  of  this  California  “gold fever,” 
is  a  sad,  sad  story  of  disappointment  and  failure  to  thousands.  But 
it  served  to  populate  a  new  State,  and  open  up  a  trade  on  the  Pacific 
coast,  which  has  since  led  to  the  building  of  a  railroad  across  this 
continent,  and  a  commerce  with  the  East,  such  as  Columbus  had  in 
view  when  he  started  from  Palos  to  find  the  new  route  to  the  Indies. 
Gold  mining  in  California  became  an  organized  form  of  labor,  and 
is  now  a  feature  of  the  State. 

In  1849  California  asked  to  be  admitted  into  the  Union.  The 
following  year  her  petition  was  granted.  One  of  the  two  senators 
sent  first  to  Congress  from  the  young  State,  was  John  Charles  Fre¬ 
mont,  now  a  large  land-holder  in  the  territory  he  had  first  declared 


Mining  in  California. 


a  part  of  the  United  States.  California  was  not  admitted  without  a 
terrible  struggle.  She  had  decided  to  come  in  as  a  State  without 
slaves,  and  the  Southern  States  did  not  like  that.  I  am  going  shortly 
to  tell  you  the  whole  story  of  slavery,  so  I  will  not  now  go  into 
detail  about  the  California  dispute. 

In  the  midst  of  it  all,  President  Taylor,  on  whom  the  hopes  of 
those  opposed  to  slavery  were  set,  suddenly  died,  in  July,  1850. 
Like  Harrison,  he  had  lived  hardly  long  enough  to  show  what  he 


402 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


would  have  done  as  president.  His  vice-president,  Millard  Fillmore,, 
succeeded  him. 

Nothing  very  remarkable  happened  during  the  three  years  in 
which  Fillmore  administered  the  government.  We  were  a  great 


and  prosperous  nation,  all  the  time  growing  stronger,  and  taking  a 
more  assured  place  among  the  nations  of  the  earth.  In  1853,  when 
Fillmore’s  term  of  office  expired,  General  Franklin  Pierce,  one  of 
the  officers  who  had  figured  in  the  Mexican  War,  and  been  wounded 
at  Churubusco,  was  elected  president.  I  have  told  you  from  time  to 
time  how  the  North  and  South,  at  first  represented  by  Massachu¬ 
setts  and  Virginia,  had  been  growing  farther  and  farther  apart,  and 
that  the  difference  in  their  institutions,  and  especially  their  different 
views  on  the  subject  of  slavery,  had  been  growing  more  and  more 
intense.  At  this  time  the  slave  power  had  grown  to  be  the  strongest 
power  in  the  nation,  and  was  able  to  elect  whomsoever  it  chose 
to  the  presidency.  So  far  the  largest  proportion  of  presidents  had 
been  from  the  South.  Of  the  eleven  men  already  elected  to  that 
office,  six  had  been  born  in  Virginia,  and  two  in  North  Carolina. 


SLAVERY  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES. 


403 


The  other  three  had  been  from  Massachusetts  and  New  York.  As 
Fillmore’s  rule  drew  to  a  close  it  was  thought  politic  to  select  a 
Northern  man  for  the  next  candidate.  The  Democratic  party,  who 
now  represented  the  slave  power  of  the  South,  chose  Franklin  Pierce 
of  New  Hampshire  as  the  man  to  receive  their  votes,  and  he  was 
elected  and  installed  president  in  March,  1853.  In  his  administra¬ 
tion  the  first  blood  in  an  arising  civil  conflict  was  shed  on  the  plains 
of  a  new  Territory  called  Kansas.  In  order  that  we  may  fully 
understand  the  meaning  and  cause  of  this  war,  I  must  ask  you  to 
read  the  chapters  which  follow  on  the  history  of  slavery  in  our  coun¬ 
try.  Without  them  you  cannot  understand  fully  the  history  of  the 
War  for  the  Union. 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

SLAVERY  IN  UNITED  STATES. 

Beginning  of  African  Slavery.  —  First  Triumph  of  Slavery  in  Georgia.  —  The  North  and 
South.  —  Washington’s  Letter  to  Lafayette.  —  Slavery  in  the  Constitution. — The  Slave- 
trade. —  Turner’s  “Slave-ship.”  —  Disputes  about  Slavery.  —  Chattel  Votes. — California 
wants  to  be  a  Free  State.  —  Anger  of  the  South. 


When  that  Dutch  trading  ship  of  which  I  told  you  early  in  this 
history  anchored  in  Jamestown  harbor,  and  sold  twenty  slaves  to 
the  planters  there,  she  sowed  the  seeds  of  a  terrible  harvest  in 
America.  It  had  been  better  for  our  dear  country  and  for  the  civil¬ 
ized  world,  if  that  ship  had  sunk  to  the  bottom  with  every  man  on 
board  her,  if  by  that  shipwreck  slavery  could  have  been  kept  out  of 
this  fair,  new  land.  But  remember,  we  needed  hands  to  labor  in 
this  country  more  than  anything  else.  England  could  not  furnish 
them  fast  enough,  when  all  at  once  this  little  company  of  blacks 
from  Africa,  naked,  uncivilized  savages,  with  robust  frames  formed 
to  endure  torrid  heats,  in  short,  just  the  people  needed  to  hoe  the 
newly  planted  tobacco  fields  of  Virginia,  were  offered  for  sale  on  the 
shore. 

“  They  will  be  much  better  off  on  my  plantation,”  reasoned  the 
planter,  “with  plenty  to  eat  and  drink,  a  snug  little  cabin  to  sleep 
in  by  night,  and  all  the  privileges  of  a  Christian  land,  than  when 
roaming  in  the  uncivilized  wilds  of  Africa,  living  and  dying  like 
beasts.” 

This  was  good  reasoning  on  the  surface,  and  the  generous  and 


404 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


kind-hearted  Virginian  believed  in  what  he  said.  But  these 
Africans,  black  and  degraded,  were  human  beings  still.  And  Nat¬ 
ure  lias  one  inexorable  law  which  cannot  be  disputed.  It  is  this : 
You  cannot  give  one  human  being  unlimited  power  over  another ,  no 
matter  how  much  inferior ,  ivithout  its  resulting  in  the  moral  degra¬ 
dation  of  the  master ,  and  the  unjust  oppression  of  the  subject.  If 
you  do  not  believe  this,  read  the  history  of  the  world  and  see  if  this 
statement  is  not  everywhere  proved. 

Human  slavery  has  been  practiced,  more  or  less,  ever  since  the 
world  began.  Savage  and  semi-civilized  nations  often  made  slaves 
of  their  prisoners  taken  in  war,  as  you  have  seen  John  Smith,  made 
prisoner  in  Avar  with  the  Turks,  working  in  Tartary  with  an  iron 
collar  round  his  neck  as  a  badge  of  servitude.  The  Romans  held 
slaves,  and  so  did  the  Greeks,  and  there  seems  to  have  been  no  feel¬ 
ing  among  them  that  the  enslaving  of  men  and  women  was  not  a 
just  and  right  practice.  In  the  ancient  history  of  the  Jews,  related 
in  the  Old  Testament,  that  people  were  made  slaves  by  the  Egypt¬ 
ians  ;  and  you  have  read  the  interesting  story  of  their  captivity  and 
their  deliverance  by  that  grand  hero  of  Ins  race,  the  lawgiver  Moses ; 
and  your  blood  has  been  thrilled  when  you  read  how  the  escaping 
Israelites  passed  over  the  Red  Sea  between  the  mighty  wall  of 
waters  which  held  back  till  the  rejoicing  host  passed  over.  In  this 
case  the  slaveholders  were  a  black  and  the  slaves  a  white  race.  In 
America  this  order  was  reversed,  and  the  enslaved  races  were 
blacker  than  the  Egyptians.  For  a  long  time  the  color  of  the 
enslaved  race  was  urged  as  an  excuse  for  their  being  held  in  bond¬ 
age.  But  in  the  better  light  of  to-day,  you  and  I  know  that  is  no 
excuse  at  all.  We  know  that  the  noble  Avords  of  our  Constitution, 
which  says  all  men  are  free  and  equal,  applies  to  all  human  beings 
on  our  country’s  soil,  and  that  every  man  has  a  right  to  himself,  his 
liberty,  his  wife  and  babies,  Avhether  he  be  black,  or  white,  or  yel¬ 
low,  or  copper  colored.  But  Ave  had  a  severe  experience,  almost  as 
bitter  as  that  of  Pharaoh  and  the  Egyptians,  before  Ave  let  our  bond- 
men  and  bond-Avomen  go  out  into  freedom. 

I  told  you  that  when  Oglethorpe  founded  the  colony  of  Georgia 
in  1732,  he  forbid  slavery  there.  The  institution  was  then  one 
hundred  and  twelve  years  old  in  Virginia,  and  the  planters  of  that 
State  and  the  Carolinas,  accomplished  their  field  labor  by  the  hands 
of  slaves.  The  fields  of  Georgia  were  as  hot  as  those  of  South  Car- 


SLAVERY  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES. 


405 


■olina,  and  the  white  laborers  and  planters  clamored  loudly  for  slaves 
there,  saying  they  were  no  better  able  to  work  under  the  torrid 
heat  of  the  sun  than  their  South  Carolina  neighbors.  They  abused 
Oglethorpe  bitterly,  and  a  party  of  the  disaffected  planters  went  to 
Virginia  and  wrote  angry  letters  to  England  about  him.  They  vil¬ 
ified  good  John  Wesley,  who  was  in  Georgia,  also  opposing  slavery 
with  all  his  might  and  main,  and  called  him  vile  names,  even  charg¬ 
ing  him  with  being  a  “  hypocrite  ”  in  religion.  All  this  because 
they  could  not  get  slavery.  As  soon  as  Oglethorpe’s  charter  ex¬ 
pired,  and  George  II.  took  command  of  Georgia  as  a  royal  province, 
they  introduced  slavery  at  once.  So  the  slave-power  celebrated  its 
first  triumph  in  Georgia. 

As  there  were  no  state  laws  against  it,  slavery  at  first  crept  into 
all  the  thirteen  colonies,  and  the  ebony-faced  African  “  mammy,” 
her  head  crowned  with  a  bright  turban,  made  of  a  many-colored 
handkerchief,  nursed  her  white  charges  in  Massachusetts  and  Con¬ 
necticut  as  well  as  Virginia.  But  one  after  another  of  the  New 
England  and  Middle  States  began  to  pass  laws  abolishing  it.  Mas¬ 
sachusetts,  Connecticut,  New  Hampshire,  Rhode  Island,  emancipated 
their  slaves.  Pennsylvania  —  where  the  good  Quakers  always  set 
their  faces  against  owning  human  beings  —  freed  her  bond-children 
gradually.  So  did  New  York  and  New  Jersey.  Gradually  the 
States  with  slavery  began  to  be  known  as  the  “  South,”  the  free 
States  as  the  “  North.” 

Vermont  had  passed  laws  against  slavery  in  1777,  long  before  she 
was  admitted  into  the  Union.  A  man  came  before  a  Vermont 
judge  in  these  early  days  to  claim  a  negro  as  his  property.  He 
produced  a  bill  of  sale  from  the  former  owner  of  the  slave  to  prove 
his  right  to  the  man.  “  The  court  cannot  admit  this  as  evidence,” 
said  the  judge.  “Nothing  but  a  bill  of  sale  from  the  Almighty  can 
be  admitted  as  proof  of  this  man’s  ownership  to  this  other  man.” 
This  anecdote  marks  the  feeling  in  Vermont. 

Before  the  year  1804,  seven  out  of  the  thirteen  original  colonies 
would  not  have  slavery  at  any  price.  The  six  colonies  who  retained 
it  were  Virginia,  the  two  Carolinas,  Maryland,  Delaware,  and, 
Georgia.  In  Virginia,  the  feeling  among  the  best  men  against  the 
institution  was  as  strong  as  in  Massachusetts.  Washington  hated 
slavery,  although  he  owned  slaves  and  had  them  on  his  plantation. 
He  said  earnestly,  “  There  is  not  a  man  living  who  desires  to  see  a 
plan  adopted  for  its  abolition  more  sincerely  than  I.”  He  wrote  to 


406 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


his  beloved  Lafayette  :  “  The  benevolence  of  your  heart,  my  dear 
Marquis,  is  so  conspicuous  upon  all  occasions,  that  I  never  wonder 
at  any  fresh  proof  of  it ;  but  your  late  purchase  of  an  estate  in  the 
colony  of  Cayenne,  with  a  view  to  emancipate  the  slaves  on  it,  is  a 
generous  and  noble  proof  of  your  humanity.  Would  to  God  a  like 
spirit  might  diffuse  itself  in  the  minds  of  the  people  of  this  country  ! 
But  I  despair  of  seeing  it.  Some  petitions  were  presented  to  the 
assembly  at  its  last  session,  for  the  abolition  of  slavery,  but  they 
could  scarcely  obtain  a  reading.” 

Jefferson,  adored  by  his  slaves  at  Monticello,  opposed  the  institu¬ 
tion  which  made  them  his  property.  “  I  tremble  for  my  country,” 
he  said  mournfully,  speaking  of  this  foul  blot  on  freedom,  “  when  I 
reflect  that  God  is  just .”  I  might  quote  a  whole  book  of  such  pro¬ 
tests  against  slavery  by  the  fathers  of  our  republic.  Unfortunately 
for  their  success  in  arousing  the  consciences  of  their  neighbors,  it 
was  profitable  to  have  slave  labor,  or  rather,  it  seemed  to  be  projit- 
able.  It  is  possible  if  it  had  seemed  equally  so  in  New  England 
and  the  Middle  States,  they  might  have  held  slaves  to  this  day,  in 
spite  of  the  protests  of  their  best  men.  Thank  God  that  the  sterile 
soil  of  New  England  offered  no  spot  rich  enough  for  this  dragon  of 
slavery  to  fatten  on. 

When  the  convention  met  to  form  the  Constitution,  the  contest 
about  slavery  at  once  began.  “  Touch  our  slaves,”  said  Georgia 
and  the  Carolinas,  “and  we  shall  not  join  the  Union.”  So  although 
Washington,  Franklin,  Jay,  Hamilton,  and  many  other  members 
opposed  slavery,  the  Union  was  formed  with  it. 

Have  you  ever  read  anything  about  the  African  slave-trade  ?  If 
you  like  stories  of  horror,  you  can  feed  on  them  in  reading  the  ac¬ 
counts  of  the  voyages  of  ships  loaded  with  slaves  brought  to  be  sold 
in  the  markets  of  this  country,  for  twenty  years  after  it  was  a  na¬ 
tion.  In  the  holds  of  these  ships,  chained  together  in  gangs,  the 
poor  blacks,  stolen  from  their  native  country,  were  packed  so  closely 
that  they  died  by  scores  from  suffocation  and  want  of  air.  Some¬ 
times,  from  the  sufferings  they  endured,  terrible  pestilences  broke 
out  among  them,  and  often  the  dying  as  well  as  the  dead  were 
hurled,  chained  together,  into  the  ocean.  Sometimes  the  poor 
wretches,  brought  on  deck  for  a  brief  space  to  breathe  a  few  mouth¬ 
fuls  of  God’s  free  air,  staggered  together  to  the  ship’s  side,  and 
leaped  into  the  waves,  choosing  rather  to  die  so  than  bear  longer 
the  great  misery  of  life. 


SLAVERY  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES. 


407 


There  is  a  famous  picture  by  the  English  artist,  Turner,  of  a  slave- 
ship,  which  has  just  passed  through  a  terrible  tempest  at  sea.  In 
order  to  lighten  the  vessel  and  save  the  crew,  the  captain  has  thrown 
overboard  his  living  cargo  of  these  unhappy  Africans.  The  lurid 
glow,  which  the  storm  has  left  behind,  lights  up  the  picture  with 
an  unearthly  radiance,  and  in  the  foreground  a  black  arm,  on  which 
hangs  the  manacles  of  the  slave,  is  thrust  upward  from  the  depths, 
appealing  mutely  to  Heaven  against  this  wholesale  murder.  So  for 
a  century  nearly,  manacled  hands  were  raised  to  Heaven  from  our 
country,  in  mute  appeals  for  its  justice. 

When  you  have  read  more  about  the  horrors  of  the  slave-trade, 
you  will  be  more  shocked  by  what  I  am  obliged  to  relate  about  the 
convention  which  formed  our  Constitution.  Although  they  had  con¬ 
sented  to  let  slavery  alone  in  the  States  where  it  existed,  and  had 
even  recognized  its  existence  in  a  faint  way  in  the  Constitution, 
nearly  all  of  the  States  intended  to  abolish  at  once  the  trade  in 
slaves.  England  had  done  so,  and  was  heartily  ashamed  of  having 
had  any  ships  engaged  in  it.  All  the  States  here,  which  had  abol¬ 
ished  slavery,  hated  this  wicked  commerce  in  human  beings.  Vir¬ 
ginia,  Maryland,  and  Delaware,  wanted  to  get  rid  of  it  as  much  as 
Massachusetts.  But  South  Carolina  and  Georgia  held  out.  “  If  we 
cannot  import  slaves  as  fast  as  we  want  them  under  this  new  gov¬ 
ernment,  we  will  stay  out  of  it,”  said  they.  “We  do  not  much 
desire  a  general  government.  We  believe  in  ‘  state  rights.’  But 
if  you  want  us  to  come  into  your  new  Union,  let  our  slave-trade 
alone.”  Well,  they  talked  it  over  and  over,  and  the  end  was,  we 
bargained  with  them  to  abolish  the  slave-trade  in  1808,  twenty 
years  after  this  nation  was  formed.  And  all  those  years  the  republic 
founded  on  the  principles  of  freedom,  with  liberty  for  a  watchword, 
had  to  endure  the  scoffs  and  jeers  of  European  nations,  at  keeping 
up  a  trade  that  was  abhorred  by  all  civilized  countries. 

I  cannot  tell  you,  because  it  would  take  too  long,  how,  step  by 
step,  this  slave-power  made  itself  the  chief  power ;  how  it  controlled 
people’s  consciences,  and  made  itself  a  stronghold,  which  hardly  any¬ 
body  dared  attack ;  how  the  South,  at  first  ashamed  of  it,  began 
to  defend  it  and  say  it  was  good  for  humanity  and  the  nation  ;  how 
ministers  preached  in  favor  of  holding  men  in  bondage,  and  went  to 
the  grand  old  Bible,  and  twisted  its  utterances  into  apologies  for 
slavery.  All  the  time  growing  stronger,  the  slave-power  elected 
the  majority  to  Congress ;  it  elected  the  presidents,  and  it  added 
year  by  year  new  States  to  its  great  area  of  slave  labor. 


408 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


When  Mr.  Jefferson  bought  Louisiana  of  France,  it  contained 
already  40,000  slaves,  and  furnished  so  much  more  slave  territory. 
When,  in  1820,  Missouri,  ready  to  be  made  into  a  State,  asked  to 
come  inside  the  Union,  she  could  not  come  in  except  as  a  slave  State. 
But  by  this  time  a  few  strong  men  were  aroused  to  the  danger. 
They  saw  that  one  might  as  well  live  under  a  despot  of  Asia,  the 
heads  of  whose  subjects  fall  at  his  nod,  as  under  the  rule  of  a  power 
so  despotic  as  this  slave  power.  So  they  argued,  and  protested,  and 
reasoned,  on  the  floor  of  Congress,  till  the  “  Missouri  Compromise  ” 
was  passed.  That  compromise  said,  “  Let  Missouri  come  in  as  a 
slave  State,  and  hereafter,  no  State  west  of  her  borders  and  north 
of  the  line  of  36°  30'  north  latitude,  shall  have  slavery. 

You  will  wonder,  perhaps,  how  the  Southern  States,  which  I  have 
told  you  were  more  sparsely  settled  than  the  North,  could  have  so 
often  outvoted  the  States  without  slaves.  I  forgot  to  tell  you  that 
the  slave-holders,  in  the  time  of  the  framing  of  the  Constitution,  had 
devised  a  shrewd  way  to  greaten  their  votes.  They  gained  the  right 
to  count  three  votes  for  every  jive  slaves  they  held;  so  that  a  man 
with  one  hundred  slaves  could  count  as  many  votes  as  a  New  Eng¬ 
land  village  with  sixty  freemen  ;  and  a  district  largely  peopled  by 
slaves  sent  as  many  representatives  to  Congress  as  an  intelligent 
community  of  Northern  citizens.  In  this  way  a  very  few  Southern 
men,  of  large  property,  held  all  power  in  their  hands,  and  always 
elected  some  one  to  serve  them  in  Congress.  These  slaves,  whom 
they  now  called  “  chattels,”  and  claimed  to  be  property,  as  much  as 
the  barrels  and  bales  in  the  warehouse  of  a  New  York  merchant, 
they  used  to  vote  with.  But  what  if  the  New  York  merchant  had 
claimed  to  vote  with  barrels  and  bales  ?  How  then  ? 

So  the  country  went  on.  The  North  never  liked  slavery.  The 
South,  always  inclined  to  “  state  rights,”  you  remember,  grew  more 
and  more  in  favor  of  state  rights.  The  North,  always  Federalists, 
believed  more  and  more  in  union,  and  made  all  kinds  of  sacri¬ 
fices  to  keep  the  South  amiable  and  contented  in  union.  When 
South  Carolina  tried  to  secede  in  Jackson's  time,  the  North  glori¬ 
fied  Jackson  for  holding  together  the  bond  which  had  knit  the 
thirteen  States  into  one.  “  The  tariff  was  only  a  pretext,”  said 
Jackson,  speaking  of  S^uth  Carolina’s  attempt  to  go  out  of  the 
Union.  “  The  next  w-ll  be  Sla> ery,  or  the  Negro  question.” 
Long-headed  “  Old  Hickory  ”  saw  deeper  than  most  men  of  his 
day. 


EFFECTS  OF  SLAVERY. 


40^ 


Next  the  nation,  or  rather  the  South,  made  the  Mexican  War  to 
annex  Texas,  and  that  gave  more  slave  territory,  and  more  votes  in 
Congress  for  that  part  of  the  nation.  The  North  tried  to  prevent 
this  war,  but  it  came  in  spite  of  its  efforts.  Then  Mexico  tried  to 
put  a  clause  in  her  treaty  of  peace,  providing  that  as  the  lands  she 
yielded  the  United  States  had  been  previously  free,  they  should  not 
be  made  slave  States.  The  blood  of  the  great  slave-dragon  was  up 
at  this  ;  fire  blew  from  his  nostrils.  One  of  its  emissaries  answered 
Mexico’s  mild  appeal  for  freedom  thus  :  “  If  you  offered  the  territory 
ten  times  increased  in  value,  covered  a  foot  thick  with  gold ,  on  the 
condition  of  leaving  out  slavery,  I  would  not  entertain  the  idea.” 
So  dear  had  slavery  become  to  its  worshipers  ! 

California  was  a  part  of  the  territory  thus  alluded  to.  They 
would  not  take  it  from  Mexico  “  covered  a  foot  deep  with  gold,”  if 
they  had  to  leave  slavery  out !  How  do  you  think  they  felt  when 
the  Americans  in  California  came  together,  made  a  government, 
voted  that  they  would  not  have  slavery,  and  asked  to  come  in  free  f 
There  was  another  battle  in  Congress,  the  hottest  yet.  The  South 
threatened  again  to  leave  the  Union.  Henry  Clay  and  Daniel 
Webster  worked  harder  than  they  had  worked  in  the  days  of  the 
Nullifiers,  to  make  the  South  hear  reason  and  finally  Henry  Clay  — 
who  was  a  great  man  for  devising  “  compromise  bills,”  or  bills 
which  generally  gave  a  good  deal  to  slavery,  and  a  little  to  freedom, 
that  the  two  opposites  could  be  coaxed  to  running  along  smoothly 
together,  side  by  side  for  a  while  longer  —  came  in  with  a  new  com¬ 
promise  remedy,  and  our  glorious  Union  was  saved  again. 

In  the  mean  time  was  the  South  really  any  better  off  for  slavery  ? 

Let  us  look  and  see. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

EFFECTS  OF  SLAVERY. 

Extravagance  of  the  Tobacco  Planter.  —  Poor  Whites.  —  Black  House-servants.  —  Cotton 

Plantations.  —  Three  Classes  in  the  South. 

In  that  tour  that  we  made  through  the  American  colonies  just 
before  the  Revolutionary  War,  I  hinted  to  you  that  the  rich  tobacco 
planter  of  Virginia  was  spending  his  money  too  fast.  He  tvas 
bringing  over  his  luxuries  from  Europe,  sending  his  sons  abroad  to 


410 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


be  educated,  driving  about  in  his  big  four-wheeled  yellow  coach,  with 
four  horses,  or  riding  on  horseback,  hunting,  fishing,  visiting  his  dis¬ 
tant  neighbors,  while  every  year  his  negroes  put  another  crop  of  to¬ 
bacco  into  the  rich  land,  gathered  the  harvest,  packed  it  in  hogsheads, 
and  loaded  it  in  ships  for  the  foreign  markets.  But  it  is  a  fact  in 
farming,  which  even  you  and  I  are  farmers  enough  to  understand, 
that  you  cannot  plant  the  same  crop  year  after  year  on  the  same 
soil,  without  making  the  land  poorer  and  poorer.  It  is  like  always 
taking  something  out  of  a  vessel,  and  putting  nothing  in.  At  last 
the  vessel  must  get  empty.  Just  so  empty  had  Virginia  soil  grown 
with  slave-labor,  for  this  last  hundred  years. 

Another  misfortune  had  been  wrought  by  leaving  the  work  to  be 
done  by  the  Africans.  It  had  made  labor  disreputable  in  Virginia, 
and  all  over  the  South.  Now,  ever  since  God  said  to  Adam,  “  Thou 
shalt  earn  thy  bread  by  the  sweat  of  thy  brow,”  whenever  a  man 
has  tried  to  escape  from  the  divine  command,  and  has  made  up  his 
mind  to  live  in  absolute  idleness,  it  has  generally  made  a  very  mis¬ 
erable  human  being  of  him.  In  the  South,  there  were  a  large  class 
of  white  people,  not  rich  enough  to  live  decently  without  work,  yet 
disdaining  work,  because  it  placed  them  on  the  level  with  negroes, 
or  as  they  pronounced  it,  “  niggahs.”  So  they  lived  a  wretched, 
thriftless  existence,  the  most  abject  and  hopeless  looking  class  of 
people  the  sun  ever  shone  upon  in  a  civilized  land.  They  were 
called  “poor  whites,”  or  “mean  whites.”  The  rich  whites  looked 
down  on  them  ;  the  negroes  with  wealthy  owners  despised  them ; 
they  were  ignorant  to  a  degree  almost  incredible  in  a  free  country 
like  ours  ;  and  in  a  word,  they  were  a  class  which  never  could  have 
existed  in  a  community  where  honest  labor  was  respected  as  it  ought 
to  be.  In  Georgia,  a  class  of  these  “  poor  whites  ”  were  called 
“  clay-eaters,”  because  —  probably  to  appease  the  pangs  of  hunger 
which  gnawed  their  stomachs  —  they  had  contracted  the  habit  of 
eating  a  kind  of  yellow  earth.  This  clay  distended  their  abdomens 
and  turned  them  ghastly  yellow  in  complexion,  making  them  look 
like  ghosts  of  the  unburied  dead.  By  the  superior  race  which  ruled 
them,  and  accepted  their  votes  for  office,  these  poor  whites  of  the 
South  were  looked  upon  with  undisguised  contempt. 

The  Southern  slave,  originally  imported  from  the  torrid  clime  of 
Africa,  was  not  by  nature  or  habit  a  vigorous  or  thrifty  laborer. 
When  a  human  being  works  year  after  year  without  any  hope  of 
being  paid  for  his  labor,  it  will  not  add  to  his  industry.  The  black 


EFFECTS  OF  SLAVERY. 


411 


slave  did  not  love  work,  and  it  often  had  to  be  coaxed  ont  of  him 
by  the  lash.  The  plantation  he  worked  was  not  like  the  farms  of 
the  North,  with  barns,  fences,  and  fields,  in  trim  condition,  the 
bars  up  to  keep  the  cattle  out,  the  crops  gathered  in  season,  and 
everything  speaking  thrift  and  neatness.  Instead,  the  whole  land 
showed  signs  of  universal  neglect  and  decay.  The  planter’s  house, 
filled  with  “house-slaves,”  was  very  unlike  the  “  Yankee”  farm¬ 
house,  where  everything  was  in  perfect  order.  I  have  known  a 
Virginia  house  with  ten  or  fifteen  droning  servants,  where  not  half 
the  amount  of  work  was  done  that  was  accomplished  in  a  Yankee 
kitchen  with  only  the  skillful  housewife  and  her  daughters  to  keep 
the  domestic  wheels  running  smoothly.  Every  year  the  Virginia 
dwelling  fell  more  and  more  into  disrepair,  the  fences  loose,  gates 
off  the  hinges,  a  dreadful  clutter  on  the  broad  hospitable  porch, 
windows  that  shook  in  the  breezes,  shutters  that  would  not  fasten, 
worn-out  furniture,  bad  domestic  management,  uncleanness,  —  these 
were  what  marked  many  of  the  fair  plantations  of  Virginia. 

By  the  time  slavery  had  become  an  institution  over  two  hundred 
years  old,  Virginia  could  no  longer  depend  on  the  tobacco  product  of 
her  worn-out  lands.  She  raised  tobacco  and  some  other  commodities, 


Picking  Cotton. 


but  she  depended  principally  on  her  crop  of  slaves.  She  raised 
negroes  for  South  Carolina  and  Georgia,  now  great  cotton-raising 
States.  The  cotton  crop  of  Eliza  Lucas,  planted  in  1740,  had  be¬ 
come  a  great  harvest,  whitening  the  fields  of  Carolina,  and  loading 
myriad  ships  with  its  produce.  Between  the  rows  of  the  cotton 
plant,  picking  the  snowy  flakes  from  bursting  pods,  black  men  and 


412 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


women  filled  basket  after  basket,  filling  also  the  pockets  of  their 
owners  with  their  unpaid  labor.  Still  farther  south,  the  great 
swampy  plains,  planted  with  rice  and  sugar-cane,  swarmed  with 
black  labor,  furnished  by  the  slave  markets  of  Virginia. 

This  is  the  South  of  1850  hastily  glanced  at.  Keep  in  mind  its 
three  classes.  First,  the  slave-holder,  sometimes  rich,  but  often  in 
debt  and  embarrassed  by  improvident  living  and  bad  management ; 


Sugar-cane. 


autocratic,  and  overbearing  with  inferiors  ;  courteous  and  generous 
with  his  equals ;  very  swift  to  quarrel,  and  apt  to  believe  a  differ¬ 
ence  of  opinion  between  gentlemen  best  settled  by  the  duel ;  rash, 
haughty,  gallant  to  ladies,  ready  to  empty  his  purse  for  his  friend ; 
- —  such  was  the  type  of  a  Southern  gentleman  of  the  time.  If  I 
add,  that  he  hated  all  “Yankees”  —  as  he  called  every  one  born  in 
the  North,  especially  those  of  New  England,  —  you  would  have  a 
still  more  complete  idea  of  the  man. 

Next,  the  unpaid,  black  laborers  ;  often  devoted  to  their  masters, 
on  whose  lands  they  had  been  born;  often  also  brooding  over  a 
vague  idea  of  freedom,  of  which  they  had  heard  as  something  uni¬ 
versal  in  the  far  off  North  ;  a  people  with  much  that  was  loyal, 
patient,  and  poetical  in  their  natures,  mixed  with  much  ignorance 
and  native  stupidity. 

Last,  and  lowest  of  all,  the  ignorant,  idle,  demoralized  “  poor 
whites.”  These  classes  were  the  elements  which  made  the  slave 
States. 


A  NEW  PARTY. 


413 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 

A  NEW  PARTY. 

The  First  Abolitionist.  — A  Mob  in  Boston.  —  Shooting  of  Lovejoy.  —  The  Cradle  of  Liberty.  — 
A  Quaker  Poet.  — Arguments  on  both  Sides.  —  Gunpowder  and  Cold  Steel. 

In  the  mean  time,  for  twenty-five  years  dating  back  from  the  year 
1850,  there  had  been  a  new  party  growing  up  in  the  North.  They 
were  known  as  “  Abolitionists,”  and  considering  their  size  and  num¬ 
bers  they  made  a  good  deal  of  noise.  One  of  the  first  of  these  Aboli¬ 
tionists  was  Benjamin  Lundy,  a  Quaker  in  Pennsylvania.  How  it 
ever  occurred  to  him  that  it  was  a  bad  thing  to  raise  human  beings 
for  market,  sell  them  like  oxen,  put  them  to  work,  and  pocket  their 
wages,  I  do  not  know.  Washington,  Franklin,  Jefferson,  Patrick 
Henry,  had  thought  so  in  their  day,  but  they  had  been  dead  a  long 
time,  and  people  generally  had  ceased  to  share  their  views  on  that 
subject.  So  Benjamin  Lundy  has  the  merit  of  being  an  original 
discoverer.  He  made  himself  a  good  deal  of  trouble  by  saying  what 
he  thought,  and  at  length  he  went  to  Boston  and  met  there  a  young 
man  named  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  a  printer  by  trade,  who  held 
exactly  the  same  ideas.  You  could  hardly  believe  how  much  trouble 
these  two  men  managed  to  make.  Young  Garrison  went  to  work  and 
published  a  paper  called  the  “Liberator,”  in  which  he  said  plainly 
that  he  thought  slavery  was  wrong ! 

Now  of  course  this  was  not  a  proper  thing  to  do.  It  set  a  good 
many  people  to  thinking,  who  decided  that  they  also  thought  slavery 
was  wrong.  It  made  the  slave-holders  uncomfortable,  because  they 
feared  these  abolitionist  people  might  get  South  and  tell  their  slaves 
that  freedom  was  a  good  thing.  The  slaves  might  believe  it,  being 
very  ignorant  and  stupid,  and  might  try  to  get  their  freedom  by  any 
means.  One  of  the  mottoes  of  the  American  revolutionists  had  been, 
“  Resistance  to  tyrants  is  obedience  to  God.”  Suppose  some  Aboli¬ 
tionist  should  teach  the  slaves  that  their  masters  were  “  tyrants,” 
why,  there  might  be  an  insurrection,  and  the  masters  might  be 
murdered  in  their  beds.  Such  a  thing  had  happened  in  the  island  of 
Hayti,  where  the  slaves  had  thrown  off  their  yoke  and  made  them¬ 
selves  a  republic,  after  a  fierce  and  bloody  war  against  their  masters. 
The  name  of  “  Abolitionist”  made  the  slave-holder  both  angry  and 
fearful.  And  with  just  cause.  They  were  his  very  dangerous  ene¬ 
mies.  Garrison  would  have  been  killed  like  a  rattlesnake  in  the 


414 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


South  if  he  had  gone  there,  and  they  offered  five  thousand  dollars  for 
his  head  in  one  of  the  States  of  this  Union.  In  Boston,  which  was 
really  the  safest  place  in  this  country  for  him,  he  did  not  fare  very 
well.  In  1835,  soon  after  Jackson  had  had  his  quarrel  with  the 
South  Carolina  Nullifiers,  the  good  citizens  of  Boston  intimated  to 
Mr.  Garrison  that  he  must  not  abuse  slavery.  He  insisted  that  he  had 
a  right  to  speak  his  mind,  and  he  would  speak  it.  They  put  him  in 
prison,  fined  him,  and  at  length,  one  day  in  October,  they  dragged 
him  through  Boston  streets  with  a  rope  round  his  body,  till  the 
mayor  got  him  and  put  him  in  jail  for  safety  from  the  mob.  Any 
conservative  and  prudent  person  would  suppose  this  would  have 
cured  him.  On  the  contrary,  as  soon  as  he  got  out  of  jail,  he  went 
to  editing  that  paper  of  his,  with  this  flaming  motto:  “JT  am  in 
earnest.  I  will  not  equivocate ,  I  will  not  excuse.  I  will  not  retreat 
a  single  inch ,  and  I  ivill  be  heard.  Everybody  knew  he  was  a  fanatic, 
but  the  trouble  with  fanatics  is,  they  make  converts.  St.  Paul  did 
that,  and  Wycliff  and  Martin  Luther,  and  they  were  all  called  fanat¬ 
ics  in  their  day.  It  was  so  with  Garrison.  Men  and  women  gath¬ 
ered  about  him,  supported  his  views,  advanced  money,  formed  an 
“  antislavery  society,”  and  held  meetings.  Many  of  their  views  were 
bitter  and  extreme.  Sometimes,  when  the  western  prairie  is  in 
flames,  we  fight  the  fire  with  fire,  till  the  two  conflagrations  meet,  and 
wrestle  with  each  other  and  die  out.  So  we  often  have  to  fight  fire 
with  fire  in  great  social  reforms.  The  early  Abolitionists  denounced 
the  Constitution  because  they  declared  it  upheld  slavery.  They  de¬ 
nounced  churches  because  the  churches  upheld  slavery.  They 
denounced  everything  but  absolute  and  immediate  freedom  to  all 
enslaved  men  and  women. 

Well,  these  ranks  began  to  swell.  Out  in  Illinois  a  man  named 
Lovejoy,  a  minister,  a  quiet-spoken,  moderate  sort  of  man,  who  did 
not  go  so  far  in  denouncing  everything  as  Garrison  did,  began  to 
edit  a  paper  and  speak  against .  slavery.  He  was  warned  it  would 
not  do  to  say  these  sort  of  things,  and  still  he  kept  on.  Then  the 
mob  broke  up  his  presses  and  destroyed  his  printing-office.  He  got 
another  office,  printed  another  paper,  and  had  the  audacity  to  repeat 
again  that  he  was  convinced  of  the  sin  of  slavery.  Again  the  mob 
surrounded  his  office,  and  when  engaged  in  defense  of  the  building  he 
was  shot  by  a  man  in  ambush.  He  fell  with  five  bullets  in  his  body, 
and  was  carried  home  a  corpse  to  his  wife  and  babies. 

The  Abolitionists,  growing  stronger  and  stronger,  held  a  meeting 


A  NEW  PARTY. 


415 


in  Faneuil  Hall,  the  old  “  Cradle  of  Liberty  ”  in  Boston,  to  remon¬ 
strate  against  Lovejoy’s  murder.  In  that  meeting  was  a  young 
Boston  lawyer,  handsome,  rich,  the  best  blood  of  Massachusetts  in 
his  veins,  and  the  prospect  of  a  brilliant  career  before  him,  if  he  was 
careful  and  prudent.  He  was  gifted  with  a  wonderful  voice,  —  the 
voice  of  the  orator.  He  could  often  move  even  his  enemies  to  tears 
or  laughter.  On  this  occasion  he  rose  to  address  this  meeting,  and 
turning  his  back  on  the  political  and  social  honors  which  might 
easily  have  been  his,  he  allied  himself  for  life  with  this  disreputable 
cause  of  abolitionism,  going  hand  in  glove  with  a  little  company  of 
poor,  struggling,  despised,  persecuted  men  and  women.  His  name 
was  Wendell  Phillips,  and  from  that  time  he  ranked  with  Garrison 
as  one  of  the  leaders  of  his  party. 

Just  about  this  time  another  man  joined  the  antislavery  cause. 
He  was  a  Quaker  by  birth,  named  John  G.  Whittier.  Nature  had 
not  given  him  power  of  speech,  but  she  gave  him  power  to  stir  men’s 
hearts  with  such  poetry  as  can  only  be  written  by  a  man  who  feels 
other  men’s  joys  and  sorrows  as  his  own.  If  he  could  have  let  alone 
the  subject  of  slavery,  he  might  have  made  money  by  his  poems, 
and  been  feted  and  flattered  in  the  land.  But  he  preferred  to  take 
up  the  cause  of  the  slaves,  and  for  thirty  years  the  sweetest  singer 
of  America  lived  under  a  cloud  of  contempt,  neglect,  and  obloquy, 
because  his  pen  had  chosen  so  unpopular  a  theme.  Thus  the  anti¬ 
slavery  cause  gained  a  leader,  an  orator,  and  a  poet.  Given  three 
such  members,  any  cause  must  make  itself  heard. 

Most  people  found  it  impossible  to  understand  what  the  Abolition¬ 
ists  meant  by  their  conduct.  Many  concluded  it  was  sheer  obstinacy 
and  wrong-headedness  that  made  them  behave  so. 

“  Why  don’t  you  let  the  slaves  alone,”  said  they.  “  Don’t  they 
have  enough  to  eat,  and  good  clothes  to  wear  ?  Are  they  not  well 
treated  ?  See  how  they  sing  and  dance,  down  on  the  cotton-planta¬ 
tions.  They  are  a  good  deal  better  off  than  they  were  in  Africa. 
They  love  their  masters  too.  Why,  they  would  n’t  run  away  if  they 
could.” 

Others  said,  “  The  slaves  are  no  better  than  monkeys.  They  are 
only  fit  for  slaves.  Even  if  they  do  get  beaten  with  the  lash  now 
and  then,  it  is  necessary  to  make  them  work.  The  white  is  the 
superior  race.” 

Others  said,  —  these  were  mostly  Northern  men,  —  “  I  think  very 
likely  slavery  is  not  right.  It  don’t  seem  the  right  sort  of  thing 

27 


416 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


to  sell  men  and  women.  But  it  is  none  of  our  doing.  Slavery 
exists,  and  we  can’t  help  it.  We  shall  make  a  terrible  revolution 
in  the  South  if  we  make  a  fuss  about  it.  Besides,  I  don’t  really  see 
how  they  could  raise  cotton,  rice,  and  sugar  without  the  negro.  At 
any  rate  the  North  must  mind  its  own  affairs,  and  let  slavery  settle 
itself  where  it  belongs.” 

The  Abolitionists,  who  always  had  arguments  thicker  than  black¬ 
berries,  met  the  speakers  with  an  answer  at  every  point.  When 
you  told  them  the  slaves  did  not  want  freedom,  they  showed  how 
all  along  on  the  borders  of  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  and  elsewhere,  over 
the  line  dividing  slave  from  free  States,  year  after  year  the  slaves 
were  running  away  in  greater  and  increasing  numbers.  They 
showed  the  backs  of  these  fugitives,  women  as  well  as  men,  ridged 
and  scarred  with  the  lash.  They  rehearsed  the  stories  of  these  men 
and  women ;  how  they  had  been  hunted  in  their  flight  by  blood¬ 
hounds,  and  had  escaped  only  by  hiding  in  swamps,  and  lying  hid 
to  the  neck  in  rivers  to  elude  the  keen  scent  of  the  doss  :  how 
mothers  had  seen  their  babies  sold  away  from  their  breasts  as  we 
sell  calves  and  foals  !  How  husbands  and  wives  had  no  certainty 
that  their  marriage-vows  might  not  be  at  any  time  severed  by  the 
auction-block.  They  declared  that  under  all  apparent  content  was 
a  terrible  discontent  that  in  a  race  of  more  blood-thirsty  nature 
than  these  peaceable  Africans  would  be  deadly  in  its  outbreak. 
All  this  the  Abolitionists  said,  and  more.  They  said  that  year  by 
year  the  black  in  these  African  faces  had  grown  paler  and  paler. 
That  there  was  already  too  much  of  the  blood  of  the  white  race  in 
the  faces  of  these  bond-servants  to  make  good  “chattels”  of  them. 
They  showed  women  in  the  South,  fair-haired  and  blue-eyed,  like 
their  own  wives  and  daughters,  bearing  the  brand  of  ownership. 
They  cut  from  Southern  papers  such  advertisements  as  these,  and 
read  them  in  their  meetings  :  — 

“Five  hundred  dollars  reward.  Ran  away  on  the  4th  of  July,  a 
slave  girl,  named  Rosa.  Has  straight  brown  hair,  and  blue  eyes. 
Limps  a  little  from  a  wound  in  the  foot,  and  has  a  scar  on  the  left 
shoulder.  She  has  a  good  address  and  will  probably  try  to  pass 
herself  off  as  a  lady.  Any  one  giving  information  of  her  to  her 
master,  John  Smith,  will  receive  the  above  reward.” 

With  all  these  weapons,  the  Abolitionists,  or  antislavery  party, 
did  infinite  mischief  to  the  slavery  party,  and  they  finally  became  a 
word  of  terror  and  hatred  in  the  South.  One  of  them  had  little 


FUGITIVE  SLAVE  LAW. 


417 


chance  of  life  or  safety  there.  “  The  only  way  to  meet  them,”  said 
an  able  Virginian,  alluding  to  the  Abolitionists,  “  is  with  gunpowder 
and  cold  steel.”  There  was  truth  in  that.  Argument  was  not  the 
thing  to  meet  them  with. 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 

FUGITIVE  SLAVE  LAW. 

The  President  from  New  Hampshire.  — Escape  of  Fugitive  Slaves.  —  Story  of  Margaret  Gar¬ 
ner. —  The  Missouri  Compromise.  —  Beating  of  Charles  Sumner.  —  “  Indignation  ”  Meet¬ 
ings.  —  The  Awkward  Lawyer,  and  the  Little  Giant. 


I  have  before  told  you  that  Fillmore’s  successor  was  Franklin 
Pierce  of  New  Hampshire, 
and  that  he  was  the  first 
Northern  man  who  had 
been  elected  to  the  presi¬ 
dency  in  many  years.  As 
I  have  explained  to  you  in 
my  chapter  on  slavery,  that 
the  slave-power,  whose  head¬ 
quarters  naturally  were  in 
the  South,  was  the  strong¬ 
est  power  in  the  nation,  you 
will  want  to  know  why  a 
man  from  the  extreme 
North  should  all  at  once 
be  elected  to  the  highest 
office  in  the  land.  Under¬ 
stand,  then,  that  there  was 
a  party  in  the  North  who 
believed  so  strongly  in 
yielding  to  all  the  demands 
of  the  slave-holding  party,  that  they  were  called  “  Northern  men 
with  Southern  principles.”  Franklin  Pierce  was  one  of  these  men. 
He  was  more  averse  to  the  agitation  about  slavery  than  even  the 
Southerners  themselves,  and  had  as  little  sympathy  with  Abolition¬ 
ists  as  the  slave-holders. 

You  remember  I  told  you  that  when  the  dispute  came  up  about 


418 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


admitting  California,  Henry  Clay  presented  a  compromise,  grant¬ 
ing  some  privileges  to  the  North,  and  others  to  the  South,  so  that 
their  mutual  differences  could  be  smoothed  over,  and  the  wheels  of 
government  could  go  on  again.  One  of  the  new  privileges  granted 
the  South,  was  the  right  to  pursue  their  fugitive  slaves  to  the  North 
and  bring  them  back.  The  slave-owners  claimed  that  this  right 
belonged  to  them  under  one  of  the  acts  of  the  Constitution,  although 
it  had  never  been  enforced,  and  a  great  many  escaped  slaves  were 
living  in  towns  and  cities  in  the  North  in  unmolested  possession  of 
freedom.  Hither  the  masters  now  proposed  to  go,  find  their  fugi¬ 
tives,  and  return  them  to  slavery.  Many  black  people  who  had 
been  living  thus  for  years  in  freedom,  were  sought  out  and  returned 
to  the  South.  Some  mothers  were  taken  back,  with  large  families 
of  children  born  to  them  in  the  North,  because,  according  to  the  law, 
the  child  of  a  slave-mother  is  born  a  slave. 

This  “  Fugitive  Slave  Law  ”  was  not  liked  by  the  North.  One 
offensive  part  of  it  was,  that  any  Northern  citizen  might  be  called  in 
to  help  the  officers  of  the  law  seize  and  arrest  a  fugitive  slave,  and 
it  was  his  duty  under  the  law  to  do  it.  Many  people,  not  opposed 
to  slavery  before,  resented  this,  and  declared  they  would  not  do  it. 
They  cried  in  indignation  to  the  South,  “  Is  thy  servant  a  dog  that 
he  should  do  this  thing?”  Others,  excellent  men,  argued  against 
this  feeling,  which  they  said  was  the  outgrowth  of  wicked  aboli¬ 
tionism,  and  showed  how  the  “  Fugitive  Slave  Law  ”  was  a  law  of  the 
land,  and  it  was  our  plain  duty  to  obey  it.  One  worthy  clergyman 
said,  that  if  his  own  mother  was  a  slave,  and  dared  to  run  away 
North,  and  be  free,  he  would  himself  help  send  her  back  to  her  mas¬ 
ter.  The  Abolitionists  talked  in  return  of  a  “  Higher  Law  ”  than 
the  “  Fugitive  Slave  Law,”  which  they  said  was  the  law  of  God, 
giving  human  beings  the  right  to  “life  and  liberty  ;  ”  and  thus  in 
Pierce’s  time  the  dispute  waxed  hotter  and  hotter. 

Once  the  officers  came  to  Boston,  now  quite  a  hot-bed  of  anti- 
slavery  feeling,  to  take  back  a  slave  named  Anthony  Burns,  who 
had  escaped  there.  The  people  showed  so  much  rebellion  on  the 
subject,  that  it  was  feared  they  would  take  Burns  away  from  the 
officers,  and  they  had  to  put  chains  all  around  Boston  court-house  to 
guard  it  from  the  mob.  They  got  the  slave  back,  however,  and  the 
majesty  of  the  law  was  vindicated.  Sometimes,  however,  the  slaves 
took  the  law  into  their  own  hands.  Let  me  tell  you  the  story  of 
Margaret  Garner,  and  the  way  she  resisted  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law. 


THE  FUGITIVE  SLAVE  LAW. 


419 


Margaret  was  a  slave.  Not  a  very  black  slave,  but  with  a  dusky 
yellow  skin  like  those  we  call  mulattoes.  She  had  two  children,  a 
boy  and  girl.  The  little  girl  was  white,  as  fair,  perhaps,  as  you  or 
I.  From  some  cause  or  other,  Margaret  Garner  did  not  like  to 
stay  in  slavery,  and  ran  away  with  her  two  children  and  two  other 
slaves.  They  all  hid  in  the  house  of  a  free  negro,  but  were  soon 
tracked  to  their  hiding-place  by  Margaret’s  master  and  a  force  of 
men  he  had  brought  with  him.  The  door  was  barred,  but  the 
officers  battered  it  down  and  got  in.  When  they  entered,  there 
stood  Margaret  Garner  with  a  bloody  knife  in  her  hand  between  the 
bodies  of  her  two  children.  She  had  cut  their  throats  with  her  own 
hand,  and  said  she  would  rather  have  them  dead  than  taken  back  to 
slavery.  The  little  girl  was  already  quite  dead,  but  the  boy  was 
only  wounded  and  afterwards  got  well.  Margaret  loved  her  dead 
baby,  called  her  “  Birdie,”  and  wept  when  she  told  how  pretty  she 
was.  But  so  far  as  I  can  learn  she  never  was  sorry  that  she  killed 
her.  They  carried  the  mother  and  her  wounded  boy  back  to  her 
master,  and  she  was  never  heard  of  any  more. 

Now  you  can  understand,  perhaps,  why  some  people  did  not  like 
the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  and  its  demand  on  all  loyal  citizens  to  help 
enforce  it,  and  how  the  feeling  grew  stronger  and  stronger  in  Mr. 
Pierce's  administration,  when  all  these  things  were  happening. 

But  one  thing  the  North  always  rested  on  in  great  content.  It 
was  the  “  compromise  ”  which  had  been  made  in  1820,  when  Mis¬ 
souri  was  made  a  State.  That  solemnly  promised  that  no  slavery 
should  come  west  of  Missouri,  and  north  of  the  line  of  86°  30'  after 
Missouri  was  admitted  with  slaves.  The  North  regarded  this  “  Mis¬ 
souri  Compromise  ”  as  their  very  ark  of  safety  against  slavery. 
They  prized  it  as  men  prize  the  charter  of  their  liberties.  Men 
who  disliked  Abolitionists  as  they  disliked  troublesome  insects, 
would  have  resented  any  doubt  that  this  compromise  was  firm  and 
eternal,  as  much  as  even  Garrison  or  Wendell  Phillips,  the  chiefs 
of  abolitionism. 

Fancy  the  excitment,  then,  in  1854,  when  a  senator  from  Illinois, 
named  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  arose  in  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States  and  proposed  to  take  back  the  Missouri  Compromise  and  let 
slavery  into  the  great  lands  of  Kansas  and  Nebraska,  which  lay  just 
west  of  Missouri,  and  so  were  promised  fairly  to  freedom  by  the 
pledge  of  1820.  It  was  a  bomb-shell  dropped  in  the  cities  of  the 
North.  The  telegraph  wires  flashed  it  over  the  land,  and  the 


420 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


people  gathered  to  talk  over  the  news  with  faces  like  those  we  wore 
in  days  of  war.  It  was  whispered  that  now  slavery  was  to  be 
forced  on  us  everywhere,  even  into  the  heart  of  Massachusetts  ;  and 
then  the  story  was  told  that  one  manj  a  senator  of  Georgia,  had 
said  he  would  yet  live  to  “  call  the  roll  of  his  slaves  from  Bunker 
Hill.”  He  would  do  it  to  spite  the  Boston  Abolitionists.  This 
new  proposition  of  Stephen  A.  Douglas  was  called  the  “  Kansas- 
Nebraska  Bill.”  There  was  a  hard  and  bitter  fight  on  it  in  Con¬ 
gress.  One  senator  from  Massachusetts,  Charles  Sumner,  worked 
night  and  day  to  prevent  the  bill  from  passing.  He  made  a  speech 
called  “  The  Crime  against  Kansas,”  which  deeply  offended  the 
Southern  senators.  A  representative  from  South  Carolina,  Preston 
Brooks,  was  so  enraged  at  this  speech  that  he  came  up  behind  Mr. 
Sumner  while  he  sat  waiting  at  his  desk  in  the  senate  chamber,  and 
beat  him  over  the  head  with  a  cane  till  the  senator  fell  bleeding  and 
senseless  on  the  floor.  The  North  held  indignation  meetings  at  this, 
and  more  and  more  people  joined  the  growing  antislavery  party. 
The  South  honored  Mr.  Brooks,  and  presented  him  with  another 
and  a  stronger  cane,  and  said  he  served  the  dastardly  Northerner 
right,  who  was  a  coward,  and  would  not  have  fought  a  duel  like  a 
gentleman  if  Mr.  Brooks  had  challenged  him  fairly. 

Well,  of  course  the  Kansas  bill  passed,  in  spite  of  all  such  men 
as  Sumner  could  do  or  say.  Slavery,  it  was  decided,  should  go  into 
the  fertile  plains  of  Kansas,  if  the  majority  of  the  people  should 
vote  to  have  it  there  when  Kansas  was  ready  to  be  a  State.  Doug¬ 
las  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  his  measure  victorious  ;  but  I  must  tell 
you  in  advance  that  he  lived,  I  think,  to  be  sorry  that  he  ever  made 
such  a  bill,  and  what  he  could  do  to  atone  for  it,  he  did  heartily. 
Douglas  had  an  opponent  in  his  own  State  of  Illinois.  A  tall,  awk¬ 
ward  looking  lawyer,  as  tall  and  gaunt  as  Andrew  Jackson  was 
when  he  first  came  up  to  Congress,  but  Avitli  none  of  the  courtly 
grace  that  Jackson  could  put  on  in  society.  This  man  was  Abraham 
Lincoln.  Remember  his  name,  if  you  forget  every  other  name  in 
this  book  excepting  that  of  George  Washington.  He  arose  against 
Douglas,  the  idol  of  the  State  that  owned  them  both,  and  soon  “the 
Little  Giant  ”  (so  Douglas  was  called)  began  to  realize  that  he  had 
met  his  match,  and  more  than  his  match,  when  right  and  justice 
were  at  issue  between  them. 


THE  KANSAS  STRUGGLE. 


421 


CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

THE  KANSAS  STRUGGLE. 

Settling  Kansas.  —  Free-state  Emigrants.  —  Bloodshed  on  the  Plains.  —  Sharpe’s  Rifles.  —  A 

Modern  Puritan. —  The  “John  Brown  Tract.”  — Attack  on  Lawrence.  —  Old  Ossawatomie. 

—  Kansas  a  Free  State. 

After  the  “  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill”  was  made  a  law,  there  was  a 
regular  scramble  from  slave  and  free  States  to  see  who  should  get 
first  possession  of  this  fair  land,  that  lay  smiling  and  peaceful,  ready 
for  the  settler  to  come  and  open  up  her  rich  soil,  and  build  new 
towns  on  the  slopes  of  her  rolling  prairies.  Missouri  was  close  at 
hand,  and  could  at  any  time  send  whole  towns  full  of  settlers  to  peo¬ 
ple  this  new  country.  The  free  States,  most  in  earnest  to  make 
Kansas  also  free  and  add  no  more  slave  territory  to  the  Union,  were 
very  far  distant.  But  they  were  now  thoroughly  aroused,  and  bent 
on  their  object.  They  held  meetings  in  Boston,  New  York,  and 
Philadelphia ;  formed  “  emigrant  aid  societies,”  and  subscribed 
money  liberally  to  send  people  to  Kansas,  who  would  make  it  a  free 
State. 

Very  soon  a  long  train  of  white-topped  emigrant  wagons  were 
seen  going  westward.  They  carried  the  new  settler  with  his  wife 
and  children.  In  the  wagon  were  all  their  household  goods.  When 
they  encamped  at  night  on  the  western  plains,  the  husband  set  up 
the  cooking-stove,  and  the  mother  baked  the  bread  and  cooked  the 
supper,  while  the  baby,  seated  on  the  grass,  crowed  with  delight  at 
the  sight  of  the  great  free  dome  of  sky  over  his  head.  From  1856 
till  1860,  when  Kansas  was  made  a  State,  these  long  lines  of  emi¬ 
grant  trains  were  seen  almost  as  frequently  on  the  western  plains 
as  the  locomotive  with  its  wavy  line  of  smoke  is  now  seen  on  its  way 
thither. 

And  now,  for  the  first  time,  blood  began  to  flow  in  the  fight  be¬ 
tween  slavery  and  freedom.  The  emigrants  from  the  East  and 
North  met  the  Missourian  with  bowie-knife  and  pistol,  on  this  neu¬ 
tral  ground,  which  both  claimed.  The  man  who  believed  irf  “free- 
soil,”  named  his  antagonist  “  border-ruffian.”  The  Missourian 
thought  “  Yankee  ”  and  “  black  abolitionist  ”  as  bad  names  as  lie 
could  find  for  his  opponent.  Pretty  soon  revolvers  went  off,  bowie- 
knives  flashed  from  their  sheaths,  a  man  here  and  another  elsewhere, 
had  been  killed  in  an  affray.  It  is  but  just  to  say  that  the  Missou- 


422 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


rian  was  much  the  best  fighter,  and  much  more  ready  with  pistol 
and  bowie-knife  than  his  Yankee  neighbor.  The  Yankees  intended 
to  come  in  force,  stake  out  their  farms,  build  a  town  of  houses  painted 
white  with  green  blinds,  with  school-house  and  meeting-house  in  the 
midst,  and  when  election-day  came,  go  up  solid  to  the  polls  and  vote 
that  Kansas  was  a  free  State.  The  Missourians,  on  whom  the  chief 
defense  of  slavery  seemed  to  fall,  were  not  so  good  at  emigrating, 
and  found  it  easier  to  go  over  the  borders  in  gangs,  and  try  to 
frighten  the  settlers  away,  than  to  move  in  their  goods  and  chattels 
to  settle  there.  They  felt  quite  sure  that  these  Yankees  were  white- 
livered  cowards  who  would  leave  after  a  few  revolver-shots,  and  go 
home  again,  or  be  silent  about  slavery.  But  when  one  or  two  free- 
state  men  had  been  killed,  the  Yankees  sent  word  to  the  emigrant 
societies  that  they  wanted  something  else  in  addition  to  the  usual 
outfit.  They  wanted  an  excellent  gun  known  as  “  Sharpe’s  Rifle,” 
to  aid  them  in  defending  their  rights  to  settle  in  Kansas. 

About  this  time  a  singular  figure  appeared  on  the  plains  of  Kan¬ 
sas,  wdiicli  Avere  now  looked  at  Avith  intense  interest  by  the  whole 
country  as  the  battle-ground  of  a  new  revolution.  This  strange 
figure  Was  the  tall,  erect  form  of  an  old  man  with  stiff  Avliite  hair 
and  floAving  beard.  He  might  have  stood  as  an  artist’s  model  for 
some  prophet  of  old,  and  his  severe  life,  austere  in  religion,  his 
speech  full  of  quaint  Biblical  allusions,  matched  his  looks.  His 
name  was  John  Brown,  a  name  Ave  have  often  heard,  and  one 
likely  to  prove  more  and  more  famous.  With  him  four  stalwart 
sons  came  to  Kansas  to  settle  there. 

John  Brown  Avas  much  such  a  Puritan  as  Oliver  Cromwell  was. 
And  one  of  the  convictions  that  he  held,  as  sacred  as  Cromwell  held 
the  dearest  article  in  his  creed,  Avas  this  :  that  slavery  was  a  sin, 
against  which  it  was  as  right  and  just  to  wage  warfare,  as  in  any 
cause  upon  Avhose  banners  God’s  cross  had  been  set.  That  when 
Joshua  led  the  armies  of  Israel  against  the  heathen  Amorites,  God 
Avas  not  more  surely  with  him,  than  with  the  man  Avho  went  to 
smite  slavery  with  the  edge  of  the  sword. 

John  BroAvn  had  good  blood  in  his  veins.  His  ancestors  came 
over  in  the  Mayfloivei',  the  earliest  ship  of  the  Puritans,  and  his 
grandfather  died  in  a  battle  of  the  Revolution.  Poor  and  hard- 
worked,  with  a  family  of  twenty  children  born  to  him,  John  Brown 
had  groAvn  poorer,  and  worked  harder,  on  account  of  his  devotion 
to  one  idea. 


THE  KANSAS  STRUGGLE. 


423 


Years  before  he  came  to  Kansas,  Gerrit  Smith  of  New  York,  one 
of  the  Abolitionists  who  had  wealth  to  aid  the  cause  he  believed  in, 
and  had  aided  it  largely,  offered  to  give  a  large  tract  of  land  to  those 
negroes  who  were  free  or  had  escaped  to  freedom,  that  they  might 
come  there  and  form  a  colony  and  turn  the  land  into  farms.  This 


John  Brown. 


tract  was  in  northern  New  York,  in  the  region  of  the  Adirondacks. 
On  hearing  of  this  plan  of  Gerrit  Smith,  John  Brown  had  moved 
with  his  family  to  this  untilled  forest,  hoping  that  by  his  knowledge 
of  farming  he  might  aid  the  poor,  ignorant,  undisciplined  negroes 
who  wished  to  avail  themselves  of  the  land.  From  this  region  John 
Brown  with  his  sons  now  came  to  help  the  struggle  in  Kansas. 
Such  is  an  outline  sketch  of  the  man,  whose  soul  is  marching  on 
through  the  future  to  a  fairer  and  fairer  immortality. 

In  1856  the  struggle  in  Kansas  had  fairly  begun.  At  first  only 
a  single  man  had  been  killed  here  and  there  by  lawless  bands  of 


424 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


“  border  ruffians,”  who  were  constantly  making  incursions  into 
Kansas,  not  to  settle  there,  but  to  drive  away  free-state  settlers. 
Whenever  there  was  a  territorial  election,  or  any  laws  to  be  passed 
in  the  Territory,  the  Missourians  came  over  in  great  force,  out-voted 
the  free-state  men  and  after  carrying  the  election  by  violence,  went 


home  again.  In  the  more  extreme  south  a  company  of  militia  from 
South  Carolina  and  Georgia  was  raised  and  sent  to  subdue  Kansas 
to  slavery. 

Then  preparations  were  made  on  both  sides  for  attack  and  defense. 
Lawrence,  the  chief  town  of  the  free-state  settlers,  was  attacked, 
and  its  principal  buildings  burnt.  Then  four  or  five  hundred  men 
came  to  the  village  of  Ossawatomie,  where  John  Brown  lived.  The 
old  hero  had  only  about  thirty  men  to  oppose  this  force,  but  he 
managed  them  so  skillfully  that  after  a  long  defense  of  his  position 
he  led  his  men  to  a  safe  retreat  with  a  loss  of  only  five  or  six,  leav¬ 
ing  the  Missourians  in  possession  of  the  field  with  thirty -one  killed 
and  about  twice  that  number  wounded.  One  of  the  dead  at  Ossa- 
watomie  was  Frederick  Brown,  a  son  of  the  leader. 


THE  KANSAS  STRUGGLE 


425 


When  Lawrence  was  besieged  a  second  time  by  an  army  from 
Missouri,  said  to  be  one  thousand  strong,  the  citizens  sent  for 
“  Ossawatomie  Brown  ”  (as  he  was  now  called)  to  defend  them. 
He  came,  and  with  his  little  army,  never  more  than  thirty  or  forty 
in  number,  aided  by  the  citizens,  guarded  the  town  so  well  that  the 
Missourians  concluded  not  to  give  battle. 


Lawrence,  Kansas,  in  1857. 


In  the  mean  time  the  steady  line  of  trains  kept  coming  from  the 
East,  wagon-load  after  wagon-load  of  settlers,  all  ready  to  vote  Kan¬ 
sas  into  the  Union  without  slavery.  Again  and  again  the  vote  was 
polled,  and  when  the  free-state  residents  of  Kansas  had  mustered 
in  force,  a  great  party  would  swoop  over  the  border  from  Missouri, 
outnumbering  the  legal  voters,  and  force  upon  them  the  most  ob¬ 
noxious  laws.  But  this  could  not  last  always.  Before  the  swelling 
tide  of  emigration  all  Missouri  might  soon  oppose  itself  in  vain.  In 
1858  the  free-state  men  were  able  to  vote  with  10,000  majority, 
that  Kansas  should  be  organized  ivithout  slavery ,  and  from  that 
time  resolutely  voted  down  all  attempts  to  make  her  anything  but 
free. 


426 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 

RAID  INTO  VIRGINIA. 

Presidential  Contest  of  1856.  —  An  Exodus  of  Slaves.  — The  “Kennedy  Farm.”  —  Surprise  of 
the  Watchmen  at  Harper’s  Ferry. — The  Arsenal  taken. — John  Brown  Pikes. — Arrival 
of  Soldiers.  —  Capture  of  John  Brown.  —  His  Trial.  —  John  Brown’s  Speech. — Sentence 
and  Execution.  —  Scene  on  the  Gallows. 


While  these  Kansas  troubles  were  growing  more  exciting,  a  new 
president  was  elected.  Franklin  Pierce  served  the  Southern  interest 

faithfully  for  four  years* 
ns  he  was  pledged  to  do, 
and  in  1857  gave  up 
his  seat  to  James  Bu¬ 
chanan  of  Pennsylvania, 
also  elected  by  the  Dem¬ 
ocratic  party.  There 
had  been  a  hard  politi¬ 
cal  fight  against  him 
by  the  other  party,  who 
now  called  themselves 
“  Republicans,”  the  old 
name  which  Thomas 
Jefferson  had  been 
proud  to  own.  The 
Republicans  had  for  a 
leader,  John  C.  Fre¬ 
mont,  the  young  ex¬ 
plorer  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  and  the  bat¬ 
tle  was  fought  for  him 
with  intense  enthusiasm. 
The  contest  was  decided  in  favor  of  the  party  which  had  ruled  the 
country  so  many  years,  and  in  1857  James  Buchanan  was  made 
president  in  Washington.  Of  course  he  had  little  sympathy  with 
free-state  settlers  in  Kansas,  and  they  fought  out  their  fight  there 
with  no  aid  or  encouragement  from  him. 

Meanwhile,  John  Brown,  who  found  Kansas  was  now  able  to 
gain  her  freedom  at  the  ballot-box,  concluded  to  leave  the  Territory. 
Just  before  he  left,  a  slave  came  secretly  to  beseech  his  good  offices. 


/r~ 


RAID  INTO  VIRGINIA. 


427 


in  aiding  him  to  escape  with  his  wife  and  children.  He  had  just 
learned  they  were  all  to  be  sold  in  Texas,  and  the  slaves  dreaded 
being  sold  into  the  extreme  south  more  than  the  punishment  of  the 
lash.  It  was  a  place  from  which  there  seemed  no  hope  of  any  re¬ 
lease  from  bondage. 

Brown  never  heard  any  appeal  from  the  slave  without  acting 
upon  it.  Just  before  he  started  for  the  East,  he  went  over  into 
Missouri  to  the  plantation  where  the  slave  lived,  and  took  away 
with  him  twelve  slaves  who  were  anxious  to  escape.  The  master 
of  the  slaves  was  killed  in  opposing  the  escape  of  his  property. 
Brown  marched  the  whole  party  to  Canada,  and  left  them  there 
rejoicing  in  their  freedom,  and  blessing  their  deliverer.  But  this 
deed  covered  his  name  with  odium  in  the  South,  and  he  was  de¬ 
nounced  as  the  blackest  of  murderers  and  desperadoes. 

About  the  1st  of  July,  1859,  several  months  after  John  Brown 
arrived  with  his  fugitives  in  Canada,  a  man  and  his  two  sons  came 
to  Virginia,  and  hired  a  farm  near  Harper’s  Ferry  on  the  Potomac 
River.  The  man,  who  said  he  was  a  farmer,  gave  his  name  as 
Smith,  had  white  hair  and  flowing  beard.  His  sons  were  young 
men  who  looked  as  if  they  had  been  used  to  farm-work,  and  were 
bronzed  by  exposure  to  wind  and  weather.  They  went  to  work  at 
once,  very  often  receiving  packages  and  boxes  by  the  railroad, 
which  runs  through  Harper’s  Ferry,  which  they  said  contained  their 
farming  tools,  and  the  various  utensils  they  needed  in  their  labor. 

The  town  of  Harper’s  Ferry  near  which  the  “  Kennedy  Farm,” 
hired  by  “  Smith  ”  and  his  two  sons,  is  situated,  is  one  of  the  most 
romantic  in  Virginia.  It  is  built  under  the  crest  of  the  mountains 
through  which  the  Potomac  flows.  Two  long  streets  on  the  river’s 
level  form  the  main  town,  and  from  thence  the  houses  straggle  up 
the  sides  of  the  mountains  overlooking  the  river.  A  large  armory 
for  the  manufacture  of  United  States  arms,  furnishes  employment 
for  a  band  of  workmen,  and  makes  brisk  sounds  of  labor  in  the 
otherwise  quiet  little  place.  The  great  arsenal  building,  stored 
with  guns  and  munitions  of  war,  stands  in  the  heart  of  the  town. 

On  the  night  of  the  16th  of  October,  a  little  company  of  men 
appeared  before  the  three  astonished  watchmen  who  guarded  the 
arsenal  gates,  bound  and  took  them  prisoners,  and  entered  the 
arsenal.  The  company  was  twenty-two  in  number,  five  black  men 
and  seventeen  whites.  Their  leader  was  the  long-bearded  man  who 
had  hired  the  “  Kennedy  Farm  ”  as  Smith.  He  is  no  longer  called 


428 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


Smith,  but  “  John  Brown  of  Kansas.”  In  his  party  are  his  two 
sons,  Oliver  and  Watson.  John  Brown  entered  the  armory,  and 
prepared  to  fortify  it,  and  make  it  his  head-quarters,  just  as  a  gen¬ 
eral  would  choose  head-quarters  in  time  of  war.  They  have  in  fact 
declared  war,  these  twenty-two/  men,  against  the  institution  of 
slavery.  They  are  here  to  begin  the  battle. 

It  seems  a  mad  attempt  for  this  handful  of  men  to  think  of  fight¬ 
ing  the  whole  State  of  Virginia  ;  behind  that  the  whole  slave-holding 
league  ;  still  behind  these,  the  established  law  and  order  of  a  great 
nation.  Yet  there  was  some  method  in  this  madness.  John  Brown 
knew  by  gaining  possession  of  the  arsenal  he  should  have  plenty 
of  arms  at  his  disposal.  His  plan  was  to  cut  off  all  communication 
with  the  town,  seize  the  wealthy  citizens  in  the  vicinity,  and  keep 
them  as  hostages  to  supply  money  and  provisions.  Already  his 
comrades  outside  Harper’s  Ferry  were  cutting  down  telegraph  wires, 
and  tearing  up  railroad  tracks,  to  prevent  intelligence  of  their  at¬ 
tack  spreading  over  the  country.  During  the  three  months  of  their 
stay  in  Virginia,  John  Brown  and  his  sons  had  been  exploring  the 
mountains  in  all  that  wild  region,  holding  communication  with 
slaves,  and  they  expected  now  to  be  joined  by  a  large  band  of  blacks 
to  whom  they  could  furnish  arms  from  the  arsenal,  and  then  retreat 
in  force  to  the  mountain  fastnesses  where  Liberty  could  hold  a  siege, 
impregnable  against  her  foes.  At  Collinsville,  Connecticut,  he  had 
ordered  a  thousand  instruments  of  war,  known  as  “  John  Brown's 
pikes.”  These  pikes  were  simply  a  kind  of  bowie-knife,  a  broad, 
pointed  knife,  sharp  on  both  edges,  fastened  to  a  pole  about  six  feet 
long.  These  were  John  Brown’s  own  invention,  and  he  probably 
intended  to  arm  the  slaves  with  them,  who  were  unaccustomed  to 
fire-arms.  Some  of  the  boxes  consigned  to  him  at  Harper’s  Ferry, 
had  contained  these  “  pikes.” 

This  was,  as  far  as  we  can  discover  it,  John  Brown’s  plan  and 
preparation  for  striking  the  death-blow  to  slavery.  It  was  so  far 
carried  out,  that  shortly  after  daylight  on  the  morning  of  October 
17th,  over  sixty  prisoners  were  shut  up  in  the  armory,  and  John 
Brown’s  little  army  held  the  town.  They  arrested  every  citizen 
they  met.  When  the  astonished  prisoners  asked  the  meaning  of 
their  arrest,  they  were  told,  “It  is  to  aid  in  the  freedom  of  the 
slave.”  And  on  whose  authority  was  this  done  ?  “  On  the  au¬ 

thority  of  Almighty  God.” 

If  at  any  hour  before  noon  on  this  eventful  Monday  of  October, 


RAID  INTO  VIRGINIA. 


429 


John  Brown  and  his  men  had  chosen  to  escape  from  Harper’s  Ferry, 
they  could  have  gone  away  unmolested,  and  sought  shelter  in  the 
mountains.  Probably  the  leader  constantly  expected  to  see  a  force 
flocking  to  join  him.  But  no  such  aid  appeared.  By  noon,  the  first 
company  of  one  hundred  militia  marched  into  the  town,  and  John 
Brown’s  fate  was  sealed. 

His  men  outside  the  armory  who  were  guarding  different  posts 
about  the  town,  were  at  once  killed  by  the  troops.  Before  even¬ 
ing  there  were  1,500  soldiers  in  Harper’s  Ferry,  and  the  whole 
country  rang  with  news  of  the  astonishing  insurrection.  By  night, 
the  party  inside  the  armory  numbered  seven  men,  the  sole  surviv¬ 
ors  of  John  Brown’s  army,  only  three  of  whom  were  unwounded. 
Shots  from  every  side  had  poured  into  the  arsenal,  till  night  sus¬ 
pended  for  a  season  the  attack.  Through  the  night  John  Brown 
sat  upon  the  floor  between  his  two  sons,  one  dead,  the  other  mortally 
wounded  and  dying  in  slow  agony,  waiting  for  the  day  to  break 
and  put  an  end  to  the  conflict.  Next  morning  a  ladder  used  as  a 
battering-ram,  broke  down  the  arsenal  door,  the  last  defense  be¬ 
tween  Brown  and  his  assailants.  The  sixty  prisoners  inside  hailed 
its  fall  as  their  signal  of  deliverance.  When  the  army  entered  they 
confronted  these  formidable  invaders ;  the  old  man  between  the  bodies 
of  his  two  sons,  another  dead  body  a  little  distant,  and  three  others 
with  guns  thrown  down  in  token  of  surrender.  Before  John  Brown 
could  speak,  a  lieutenant  had  struck  him  over  the  head  with  his  sabre, 
and  a  soldier  speared  him  in  the  side  with  a  bayonet  after  he  had 
fallen.  One  of  his  men  was  also  stabbed  by  the  soldiers,  and  the 
two  others,  mingling  in  the  crowd,  were  borne  off  unhurt,  as  prison¬ 
ers,  the  troop  not  recognizing  them  in  the  crowd  as  part  of  the  in¬ 
surgents.  Such  was  the  beginning  and  end  of  “  John  Brown’s  raid 
into  Virginia.”  Of  the  excitement  which  it  caused  all  over  the 
United  States,  and  especially  in  Virginia,  I  can  give  you  no  idea. 
Never  did  so  small  a  party  of  men  raise  such  fears,  or  require  so 
much  military  paraphernalia  to  suppress  them.  The  rest  of  the 
story  is  briefly  told. 

John  Brown  was  tried  by  the  State  of  Virginia  for  “  murder,  trea¬ 
son,  and  exciting  insurrection  among  the  slaves.”  He  lay  most  of 
the  time  during  his  trial  on  a  cot,  from  which  his  wounds  did  not 
permit  him  to  rise,  and  lying  there  he  heard  the  conclusive  evidence 
against  him.  During  the  affray  on  Monday,  several  citizens  of 
Harper’s  Ferry  had  been  killed  and  wounded.  This  furnished  the 


430 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


evidence  of  murder.  Treason  and  insurrection  were  no  less  fullv 

*/ 

proved.  There  could  be  no  doubt  about  the  verdict.  The  pris¬ 
oner  Brown,  and  Stevens,  the  companion  who  was  tried  with  him, 
were  found  guilty,  and  sentenced  to  be  hung  by  the  neck  till  they 
were  dead.  On  the  2d  of  December  Brown  was  to  suffer  the  penalty 
of  his  deeds. 

When  he  was  asked  why  sentence  of  death  should  not  be  passed 
on  him,  John  Brown  made  a  brief  speech.  Here  is  one  passage 
from  it. 

“  This  court  acknowledges,  I  suppose,  the  validity  of  the  laws  of 
God.  I  see  a  book  kissed  here,  which  I  suppose  to  be  the  Bible,  or 
at  least,  the  New  Testament.  That  teaches  me  that  all  things 
‘  whatsoever  I  would  that  men  should  do  to  me,  I  should  do  even  so 
to  them.’  It  teaches  me  further  ‘  to  remember  those  in  bonds,  as 
bound  with  them.’  I  endeavored  to  act  upon  these  instructions. 
I  believe  that  to  have  interfered  as  I  have  done  in  behalf  of  his  de¬ 
spised  poor,  was  not  wrong,  but  right.  Now,  if  it  is  deemed  neces¬ 
sary  that  I  should  forfeit  my  life  for  the  furtherance  of  the  ends  of 
justice,  and  mingle  my  blood  further  with  the  blood  of  my  children, 
and  with  the  blood  of  millions  in  this  slave  country,  whose  rights 
are  disregarded  by  wicked,  cruel,  and  unjust  enactments,  I  submit. 
So  let  it  be  done.’’ 

He  spent  the  intervening  time  before  the  execution  of  his  sentence, 
in  writing  and  answering  letters.  He  had  many  letters  of  sympathy, 
some  even  expressing  admiration  of  his  course.  He  left  minute  direc¬ 
tions  for  his  wife  and  children  to  follow,  and  wrote  a  careful  will  dis¬ 
posing  of  his  simple  effects.  He  read  the  Bible  much,  but  would  re¬ 
ceive  no  Southern  clergyman,  because  he  declared  no  man  could  be  a 
Christian  who  defended  slavery,  and  he  preferred  to  die  unministered 
to  rather  than  take  the  hand  of  any  one  in  fellowship  who  could 
apologize  for  that  which  was  to  him  the  most  monstrous  of  crimes. 

On  the  2d  day  of  December,  he  made  ready  to  ride  to  the  gal¬ 
lows.  As  he  walked  out  of  the  door  of  his  jail  with  the  step  of  a 
conqueror  rather  than  that  of  a  felon,  he  saw  near  the  entrance  a 
slave  woman  with  a  little  black  child  in  her  arms,  who  looked  at 
him  wonderingly.  He  stooped  and  kissed  the  baby,  and  went  quietly 
on.  In  the  cart,  going  to  the  gallows,  with  the  undertaker  beside 
him,  the  latter  said,  — 

“  You  are  more  cheerful  than  I  am,  Mr.  Brown.” 

“  Why,  yes,”  said  the  old  man  simply,  “  I  ought  to  be.” 


LINCOLN  ELECTED  PRESIDENT. 


431 


Then  he  apologized  fox'  his  calmness,  as  if  he  feared  it  looked  like 
bravado,  explaining  that  it  had  been  characteristic  with  him  from 
childhood  not  to  feel  fear  of  death.  “  I  have  suffered  far  more  from 
bashfulness  than  from  fear,”  he  said.  On  the  scaffold  he  was 
blindfolded  and  led  upon  the  drop.  For  ten  minutes  he  waited  im¬ 
movable  with  the  rope  around  his  neck,  while  the  military  ti'oops  in 
attendance  paraded  gorgeously  in  the  sun,  till  at  length  many  voices 
cried  “Shame!  shame  !  ”  at  the  spectacle  of  that  patient  figure  up 
there  waiting  his  death  signal.  Then  the  drop  was  let  fall,  the 
body  struggled  and  writhed  till  all  was  over  aixd  the  dangling  figure 
ceased  to  give  evidence  of  life.  The  majesty  of  the  law  was  vindi¬ 
cated,  and  John  Brown’s  body  was  dead. 


CHAPTER  XXX. 

LINCOLN  ELECTED  PRESIDENT. 

Party  Quarrels.  —  The  Story  of  Abraham  Lincoln’s  Boyhood.  —  Feeling  of  the  South.  —  Threats 
to  break  up  the  Union.  —  Joy  in  South  Carolina  at  Lincoln’s  Election. — What  is  Trea¬ 
son  ?  —  Difference  between  Northern  and  Southern  Patriotism. 

Mr.  Buchanan  was  president  dui'ing  this  John  Brown  excite¬ 
ment,  and  in  his  administration  other  and  still  more  exciting  events 
were  to  follow.  Already  the  coixntry  began  to  talk  about  the  man 
who  should  be  the  next  president,  and  never  had  the  nation  been 
divided  into  so  many  parties  as  in  the  fall  of  1860,  when  the  election 
was  to  take  place.  Before  this  time  there  had  been  two  great  parties, 
the  “  Democi'ats  ”  and  “  Republicans.”  Now  these  wei'e  subdivided 
into  four  parties,  each  resolved  on  electing  their  candidate.  The 
Democratic  party  had  split  in  two.  There  wei'e  the  “  Southern 
Democrats,”  who  had  at  their  head  John  C.  Breckenridge  of  Ken¬ 
tucky.  There  were  the  “  Northern  ”  or  “  Douglas  Democrats,” 
with  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  the  author  of  the  famous  “  Kansas-Ne- 
braska  Bill,”  as  their  leader.  These  two  parties  had  quarreled  be¬ 
cause  Douglas  held  that  Kansas,  or  any  other  Territory,  had  the  light 
to  vote  that  slavei’y  should  not  exist  within  its  boundaries  if  the  ma¬ 
jority  of  the  people  did  not  want  it.  The  Southern  party  now  de¬ 
clared  that  slavery  ought  to  go  into  the  Territories  and  be  recognized 
as  an  institution  of  the  United  States.  Hence  their  quarrel  with  the 
Northern  members  of  their  party.  The  third  party  was  called  the 

i  Union  and  Constitutional  party,”  or  the  “  Bell-Everetts,”  from 

28 


432 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


their  leaders,  John  Bell  and  Edward  Everett,  for  president  and  vice- 
president.  This  party  was  very  much  troubled  by  the  constant 
threats  of  Southern  senators  on  the  floor  of  Congress,  that  they  were 
going  out  of  the  Union  to  make  a  new  government  of  their  own. 
The  “  Union  party  ”  drew  up  an  expression  of  their  opinion  (or  what 


Abraham  Lincoln. 


political  parties  call  a  “  platform  ”),  in  which  they  begged  all  the 
people  to  stand  by  the  Union  and  the  national  laws.  The  fourth 
party  was  the  Republican ;  the  same  that  had  worked  so  hard  for 
John  C.  Fremont  four  years  before.  This  party  had  taken  Abra¬ 
ham  Lincoln  for  their  leader.  He  was  the  fellow-statesman  of 
Douglas  in  Illinois,  and  once  before  had  had  a  contest  with  the 
“  Little  Giant,”  with  their  own  State  as  the  battle-ground. 

Abraham  Lincoln  had  had  a  severe  struggle  in  life  before  he  got 
far  enough  up  above  the  crowd,  so  that  people  could  see  his  homely, 
honest  face  above  those  of  other  men  born  in  his  own  rank.  He 
was  the  son  of  a  Kentucky  farmer,  and  in  his  youth  had  worked 
hard  at  the  rudest  kind  of  labor.  He  had  hoed  corn,  driven  oxen, 
helped  to  build  the  log-house  which  was  the  home  of  his  family  in 
Illinois,  and  had  spent  one  whole  season  in  the  woods  splitting  rails 


LINCOLN  ELECTED  PRESIDENT. 


433 


for  fences.  From  this,  liis  opponents  called  him  a  “  vulgar  rail- 
splitter,”  an  “  ignorant  boor,  unfit  for  the  society  of  gentlemen.” 
But  Abraham  Lincoln  had  been  early  in  the  very  best  society.  He 
was  so  poor  that  he  could  get  only  very  few  books  in  his  boyhood  and 
youth,  but  through  the  aid  of  his  mother,  who  encouraged  his  love 
for  reading,  he  got  three  volumes  early  into  his  hands.  These  were 
the  Bible,  Pilgrim’s  Progress,  and  iEsop's  Fables.  In  their  very 
excellent  society  he  spent  his  leisure  till  he  knew  them  by  heart. 
To  them,  no  doubt,  he  owed  much  of  his  ability  to  write  clean, 
wholesome  English,  such  as  men  write  who  have  begun  their  educa¬ 
tion  with  a  few  good  books.  When  Abraham  Lincoln  wrote  a 
thing,  you  read  what  he  meant.  The  meaning  was  not  covered  up 
under  a  heap  of  useless  words.  One  thing  was  apparent  in  him 
from  boyhood.  This  was  his  straightforward  truthfulness  and  sin¬ 
cerity  of  purpose.  No  political  experience  ever  twisted  him ;  he 
ended  life  as  he  began  it,  an  honest,  sincere,  trustworthy  man.  One 
of  the  great  outcries  against  him  by  his  opponents  after  he  was 
elected  was,  “  He  is  an  uncouth,  rough  backwoodsman.  He  is  no 
gentleman .”  It  is  true  that  he  was  very  uncouth  in  face  and 
figure  ;  never  handsome  to  look  at,  although'  the  soul  of  the  man 
sometimes  shone  through  the  plain  features  in  a  way  that  trans¬ 
figured  them,  and  his  deep  gray  eyes  were  full  of  a  great  sadness, 
that  seemed  almost  to  prophesy  his  tragic  fate.  He  had  not  the 
manners  of  a  court,  but  he  did  deeds  from  the  promptings  of  a 
simple,  manly  heart  that  a  king  might  have  been  proud  to  own,  and 
if  he  was  not  a  true  gentleman,  God  does  not  make  any  nowadays. 

This  was  Abraham  Lincoln,  who  stood  before  the  people  in  the 
year  1860  as  one  of  the  candidates  for  the  presidency. 

As  soon  as  he  was  announced  as  the  choice  of  the  party,  the  South 
were  more  furious  than  ever.  And  they  declared  through  their 
senators  in  Congress,  their  newspapers,  in  their  public  meetings,  in 
private  meetings  all  over  the  South,  that  if  the  Republican  party 
should  elect  their  president,  the  “  South  would  go  out  of  the  Union.” 

Now  it  is  very  plain  that  if  the  Southern  Democrats  had  not 
quarreled  with  their  Northern  friends  and  refused  to  vote  with 
them,  they  might  altogether  have  outvoted  the  Republicans.  But 
it  seems  quite  clear  that  the  South  wanted  a  pretext  for  “secession,” 
and  really  hoped  Lincoln  might  be  elected  so  that  she  could  go  off 
by  herself  and  form  a  “  Southern  Confederacy  ”  of  slave-holding 
States,  where,  as  one  of  her  best  and  ablest  leaders  said,  “  she  could 


434 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


have  slavery  for  the  corner-stone.”  Many  of  her  wealthy  slave¬ 
holders  wanted  to  reopen  the  trade  in  slaves  so  that  they  could  get 
negroes  cheaper  than  they  could  with  the  present  restrictions  on  that 
kind  of  commerce,  and  one  of  the  Georgia  members  complained  in  the 
convention  which  nominated  Breckenridge,  that  he  had  to  pay  from 
one  to  two  thousand  dollars  a  head  for  negroes  in  Virginia,  when  he 
could  go  to  Africa  and  buy  better  ones  at  fifty  dollars  apiece. 

So  the  South  were  prepared  to  welcome  the  election  of  Lincoln 
when  it  took  place  in  November,  18(51,  and  they  did  welcome  it 
heartily.  When  the  Republican  party  in  the  North  was  firing 
cannon,  and  ringing  bells,  and  building  bonfires  over  their  first  vic¬ 
tory  in  the  nation,  the  people  of  Charleston  in  South  Carolina  were 
shaking  hands  in  congratulation,  and  many  hearty  cheers  went  up 
at  the  news  of  Abraham  Lincoln’s  election. 

Before  Lincoln  had  been  the  president  elect  three  months,  and 
almost  three  months  before  he  took  the  seat  of  government,  seven 
States  had  passed  resolutions  to  go  out  of  the  Union.  South  Caro¬ 
lina  led  the  van.  and  Mississippi,  Georgia,  Alabama,  Florida,  Loui¬ 
siana,  and  Texas,  all  followed. 
Each  State  held  a  convention', 
declared  that  she  no  longer  be¬ 
longed  to  the  United  States,  and 
would  not  acknowledge  its  author¬ 
ity.  Then  these  seven  met  to¬ 
gether  and  formed  a  “  confeder¬ 
acy  ”  of  Southern  States,  called  the 
“Confederate  States  of  America,” 
and  on  the  4th  of  February,  1861, 
elected  Jefferson  Davis  of  Mis¬ 
sissippi  the  president,  and  Alex- 
jefferson  Davis.  ander  Stephens  of  Georgia  vice- 

president.  Thus  they  proposed  to  sever,  or  cut  in  two,  the  nation 
previously  known  as  the  United  States  of  America. 

Of  course  you  understand  that  if  the  United  States  was  a  nation, 
the  action  of  such  men  was  treason,  and  they  were  rebels.  There 
are  forty  counties  in  England.  Suppose  the  twenty  southern  coun¬ 
ties  should  say  all  at  once,  “We  are  dissatisfied  with  the  people  of 
the  northern  counties,  and  are  going  to  break  off  and  make  a  nation 
by  ourselves.  We  are  perfectly  willing  to  make  a  peaceable  treaty 
with  the  other  half  of  England,  and  we  do  not  want  to  fight  her,  but 


LINCOLN  ELECTED  PRESIDENT. 


435 


if  she  attempts  to  prevent  our  forming  a  new  nation  we  shall  fight 
her,  tooth  and  nail,  till  one  side  is  forced  to  yield.”  In  such  a  case 
we  should  be  sure  there  were  TRAITORS  in  England,  and  we  should 
call  their  action  treason  against  the  English  government. 

But  the  southern  part  of  our  country  claimed  that  they  were  not 
traitors,  because  each  State  was  “  sovereign  and  independent ;  ”  that 
they  had  voluntarily  come  together  and  made  a  Union,  and  now  were 
tired  of  it,  wanted  to  go  away,  and  had  a  perfect  right  to  go.  This 
was  the  view  the  politicians  in  the  South  had  taken  almost  from  the 
first.  This  was  the  idea  of  John  C.  Calhoun.  The  time  had  come 
at  last  when  it  had  to  be  tested  whether  the  United  States  was  a 
nation  reaching  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  from  the  Gulf  of 
St.  Lawrence  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  or  a  band  of  petty  states  who 
could  divide  and  subdivide  at  pleasure,  till  we  had  thirty  or  forty 
small  republics,  perhaps,  on  this  continent.  That  was  the  question 
which  had  been  brewing  ever  since  the  year  1787  when  the  Federal 
Constitution  was  adopted. 

The  Northern  people  had  no  adequate  idea  how  resolved  the 
people  of  the  South  were  in  this  matter.  Hardly  any  one  among 
them  believed  that  South  Carolina,  who  led  off  in  this  act  of  seces¬ 
sion,  really  could  be  in  earnest.  The  North  believed  in  a  nation. 
Even  the  larger  part  of  the  Northern  Democrats,  who  were  ready  to 
yield  up  almost  anything  for  the  sake  of  peace,  would  have  sprung 
to  the  rescue  of  the  American  flag,  if  they  had  seen  it  about  to  be 
hauled  down  by  any  members  of  their  own  party.  To  the  Northern 
man  the  Union  meant  everything  dear  to  him  as  a  patriot. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  man  of  South  Carolina  from  childhood 
had  heard  of  Jus  State  and  her  glory  ;  he  boasted  of  being  a  “  South 
Carolinian  ”  ;  he  loved  the  palmetto  flag,  the  emblem  of  his  State. 
The  man  of  New  England,  New  York,  or  the  States  of  the  North¬ 
west  hardly  knew  if  his  State  had  a  flag ;  for  him  there  was  but  one 
flag,  which  he  reverenced  abroad  and  at  home — the  stars  and  stripes. 
He  did  not  say  “  I  am  an  Illinoisian,”  or  a  “  New  Yorker,”  but 
declared  proudly,  “  I  am  an  Americans  You  see  thus  what  diffi¬ 
culty  these  two  classes  of  men  had  in  understanding  each  other. 
The  Northerner  could  not  believe  that  the  South  would  really 
break  up  the  sacred  Union  ;  the  Southerner  could  not  believe  that 
the  Union  was  anything  which  the  North  would  fight  about.  Thus 
the  two  opposing  parts  of  the  nation  stood  when  the  4tli  of  March, 
1861,  drew  near. 


436 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


CHAPTER  XXXI. 

BEGINNING  OF  HOSTILITIES. 


Inauguration  Speech  of  Lincoln.  —  Coercion.  —  National  Property.  —  Forts  in  Charleston  Har¬ 
bor.  —  Guns  opened  on  Fort  Sumter.  —  The  Bombardment.  —  The  Flag  hauled  down.  — 
Intense  Excitement.  — Patriotism  in  the  North.  —  Patriotism  in  the  South. 


Inauguration  day  came,  and  Lincoln,  standing  before  the  as¬ 
sembled  crowd  in  Washington,  read  his  inaugural  address.  He  had 
had  a  grand  tour  from  his  simple  home  in  Springfield,  Illinois,  all 
the  way  to  Philadelphia,  met  everywhere  by  the  hearty  greetings  of 
a  large  party  of  the  people.  When  he  reached  Philadelphia  and 
went  through  the  customary  ceremonies  of  welcome  there,  he  was 
informed  that  he  must  not  go  through  Baltimore  openly.  There 
was  a  plot  discovered  by  some  skillful  detectives,  to  murder  him  as 
he  passed  through  that  city.  Then  for  the  first  time  the  new  presi¬ 
dent  was  made  to  feel  he  was  nearing  an  enemy’s  land.  He  refused 
to  believe  in  this  plot  at  first,  but  finally  yielded  and  went  through 
Baltimore  by  night  and  secretly,  in  order  to  frustrate  these  designs 
upon  his  life. 

Mr.  Lincoln’s  address  was  like  himself,  honest  and  manly.  He 
told  the  country  that  the  United  States  was  a  government,  and  that 
no  State  could  by  its  own  act  take  herself  out  of  the  Union.  That 
to  the  best  of  his  ability  he  should  faithfully  execute  the  laws  of 
the  Union.  He  assured  the  Southern  people  that  he  had  no  design 
or  wish  to  violate  any  of  their  lawful  rights,  even  those  which  re¬ 
lated  to  slavery,  and  he  and  the  nation  intended  to  respect  all 
their  rights.  But  he  assured  them  that  he  must,  as  the  servant 
of  this  nation,  hold,  occupy,  and  possess  all  the  property  belong¬ 
ing  to  the  United  States,  whether  it  was  situated  in  the  North  or 
the  South. 

This  last  declaration  was  taken  up  as  the  signal  of  war  upon  the 
South,  and  all  her  people,  and  her  friends  in  the  North,  talked  about 
the  wickedness  of  “  coercion,”  or  forcing  the  South  to  stay  in  the 
Union  at  the  cost  of  bloodshed.  The  truth  was,  the  United  States 
owned  a  line  of  forts  extending  all  along  the  Atlantic  coast  and 
Gulf  of  Mexico.  There  were  forts  at  the  entrance  of  all  the  large 
harbors,  and  the  mouths  of  all  important  rivers,  from  Virginia  to 
Louisiana,  or  the  Mississippi.  These  forts  were  built,  owned, 


BEGINNING  OE  HOSTILITIES. 


437 


manned,  and  furnished  by  the  United  States.  They  did  not  belong 
to  South  Carolina  or  Florida,  any  more  than  to  Michigan  or  Wis¬ 
consin.  These  forts,  many  of  them,  had  been  seized,  and  were  now 
held  by  the  rebels  against  the  United  States  government.  In  Texas 
the  largest  part  of  the  United  States  army  were  stationed  near  the 
Mexican  border  under  command  of  General  Twiggs,  who  you  will 
remember  had  been  in  the  Mexican  War.  This  army  belonged  to 
the  United  States  ;  not  to  Texas,  or  Georgia,  or  Massachusetts,  or 
New  York.  Its  officers  had  been  educated  at  West  Point,  on  the 
Hudson,  at  the  expense  of  the  country.  Its  men  were  clothed  and 
fed  by  the  United  States  ;  its  officers  drew  their  pay  from  the  Union  ; 
they  were  its  property.  Yet,  news  had  already  come  that  Gen¬ 
eral  Twiggs  had  given  this  army  up  into  the  hands  of  “  secession¬ 
ists  ”  in  Texas.  Again,  during  the  last  days  of  Mr.  Buchanan’s  pres¬ 
idency,  the  secretary  of  war,  who  had  control  of  guns  and  cannon 
and  munitions  of  war  belonging  to  the  nation,  had  been  using  his 
power  to  send  arms  wherever  he  chose.  So  this  secretary,  who  was 
an  ardent  secessionist,  had  sent  all  the  munitions  South  that  he 
could,  without  arousing  suspicion.  From  one  United  States  arsenal 
in  Massachusetts  alone,  he  had  thus  sent  away  over  100,000  guns. 
Add  to  these,  that  in  the  seven  States  now  already  claiming  to  be  a 
“  confederacy,”  the  secessionists  were  seizing  the  arsenals  and  manu¬ 
factories  that  were  national  property,  the  national  mints,  containing 
United  States  money,  and  you  see  what  Mr.  Lincoln  meant  by  saying 
he  considered  it  his  duty  to  hold  the  property  of  the  United  States, 
and  why  it  brought  down  on  him  more  bitter  hatred  and  darker 
threatenings  than  he  had  yet  heard. 

In  the  harbor  of  Charleston  were  several  forts.  One  of  these  was 
Fort  Moultrie,  named  for  the  gallant  colonel  who  had  held  it  in  the 
first  years  of  the  Revolution.  Another  was  Fort  Sumter,  also  of 
Revolutionary  fame.  When  South  Carolina  began  her  secession 
fury,  after  Lincoln’s  election,  Major  Robert  Anderson  was  com¬ 
manding  the  forts  in  the  harbor.  He  was  stationed  with  a  little 
garrison  at  Moultrie.  Fort  Sumter  was  the  better  and  larger  fort, 
and  six  days  after  South  Carolina  had  declared  herself  out  of  the 
Union,  Major  Anderson  took  his  soldiers,  provisions,  guns,  and  all 
that  could  be  moved,  over  to  Sumter,  and  occupied  it.  The  South 
Carolinians  talked  loudly  about  this,  and  claimed  that  Mr.  Buchanan 
had  promised  not  to  reinforce  the  forts,  or  put  any  more  soldiers  in 
the  harbor.  On  the  other  hand,  Major  Anderson  asked  repeatedly 


438  STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 

for  provisions  and  men,  if  the  government  wanted  to  keep  their  forts. 
One  attempt  had  been  made  to  send  a  ship  to  his  aid,  but  she  had 
been  fired  upon  in  Charleston  harbor  and  retreated,  and  was  finally 
captured  by  the  rebels,  and  held  by  them  as  their  property. 

Now  Major  Anderson  sent  word  to  Lincoln  that  he  could  not  hold 
the  fort  unless  the  government  came  to  his  succor.  Lincoln  answered 
that  the  fort  should  be  provisioned.  The  chiefs  of  the  confederates 
in  Charleston  heard  this,  and  on  the  12th  of  April  they  informed 
Anderson  that  the  fort  must  at  once  be  surrendered,  or  it  would  be 
bombarded. 

Anderson  refused  to  surrender.  He  knew  a  long  defense  would 
be  hopeless,  but  he  resolved  not  to  haul  down  his  country’s  flag  with¬ 
out  a  struggle.  He  had  eighty  men  in  the  garrison,  and  a  very  small 


Sand  Bag  Battery  at  Fort  Moultrie. 


■supply  of  food,  and  while  provisions  lasted  he  thought  he  could 
make  a  defense.  On  Friday,  the  twelfth  day  of  April,  1861,  the 
guns  from  Charleston  opened  their  fire  on  the  walls  of  Fort  Sum¬ 
ter.  The  rebels  had  taken  possession  of  Fort  Moultrie,  and  two 
other  fortified  points  in  the  harbor,  and  they  had  also  two  floating 
batteries  from  which  guns  were  leveled.  So,  from  five  points  at 
once,  balls  rained  on  the  devoted  fort. 

Major  Anderson  kept  silent  for  a  time  and  did  not  return  the  fire. 
At  last  he  began  to  use  his  guns,  but  with  little  effect  on  his  ene¬ 
mies.  All  his  powers  were  necessarily  devoted  to  defense.  There 
were  wooden  barracks  inside  the  fort  which  soon  took  fire  from  the 
bombs  thrown  by  the  rebels.  These  were  twice  saved  —  the  flames 


BEGINNING  OF  HOSTILITIES. 


439 


extinguished.  But  on  the  second  day  of  the  siege,  the  flames  took 
such  hold  of  them  that  they  could  not  be  stopped,  and  they  were  all 
consumed.  With  flames  inside,  and  the  pelting  cannon  balls  batter¬ 
ing  away  at  their  walls  outside,  the  little  garrison  had  a  hot  day. 
The  smoke  was  blinding,  the  air  too  hot  and  thick  to  breathe.  The 
men  worked  with  wet  cloths  over  their 
mouths  and  noses.  The  fort  was  a  scene 
of  ruin,  such  as  one  sees  in  a  city  where 
a  great  fire  sweeps  over  its  squares  and 
consumes  them.  It  was  plain  Fort 
Sumter  could  not  hold  out  much  longer. 

All  this  time  several  ships  sent  to 
reinforce  Major  Anderson  waited  out¬ 
side  the  harbor,  out  of  range  of  the 
firing,  the  issue  of  the  siege.  They 
could  only  draw  near  the  fort  through 
the  heavy  fire,  with  great  loss  of  life, 
and  their  commander  thought  it  prudent  not  to  attempt  a  nearer 
approach.  Major  Anderson  could  see  these  vessels,  with  our  flag 
flying  cheeringly  from  the  mast-head,  all  the  time  the  bombard¬ 
ment  was  going  on.  So  far  he  had  kept  his  flag  gallantly  flying 
in  answer.  Although  it  had  once  been  shot  from  the  staff,  it  was 
nailed  up  again  under  the  enemy’s  fire. 

But  Sumter’s  gallant  defense  was  hopeless.  Major  Anderson 
knew  that  from  the  first.  At  noon,  on  the  13th,  a  boat  with  one 
of  the  rebel  leaders  on  board,  set  off  from  Charleston  to  the  fort, 
and  asked  to  see  Major  Anderson.  He  gave  his  name  as  General 
Wigfall  of  Texas,  and  said  he  came  from  General  Beauregard,  who 
commanded  the  Southern  army  in  South  Carolina,  and  wished  to 
stop  the  firing.  On  his  representations  Major  Anderson  permitted 
a  white  flag  to  be  displayed.  Another  party,  this  time  really  sent 
by  Beauregard,  came  over  from  Fort  Moultrie  in  a  boat  to  see  what 
Anderson  meant  to  do.  From  these  last  comers  Major  Anderson 
found  that  Wigfall  had  acted  without  orders,  without  the  knowledge 
even  of  General  Beauregard.  But  after  some  discussion  it  was 
agreed  that  on  the  next  day,  Sunday,  the  14th  of  April,  Major 
Anderson  should  evacuate  the  fort  with  all  his  men  and  all  their 
movable  property,  should  come  out  with  arms  and  flying  colors,  and 
salute  his  flag  with  fifty  guns  before  it  was  pulled  down.  This 
was  done,  and  on  that  day  Anderson  and  his  men  took  the  vessels 


Robert  Anderson. 


440 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


that  had  been  sent  to  reinforce  them,  and  sailed  North,  where  the 
gallant  major  received  all  the  honors  which  his  countrymen  could 

lavish  on  him  in  token  of  their  love  and 
esteem.  As  soon  as  he  had  left,  the  rebel 
General  Beauregard  went  over  to  the  bat¬ 
tered  and  smoking  fort,  and  pulling  down 
the  old  flag,  ran  up  the  palmetto  flag  of  the 
little  State  of  South  Carolina  in  her  place. 

This  is  the  bombardment  of  Sumter, 
simply  and  briefly  told.  But  I  can  hardly 
dare  trust  myself  to  tell  you  how  the  news 
that  the  fort  had  been  fired  on,  our  flag 
riddled  with  cannon  balls  and  hauled  down  from  its  proud  place 
aloft,  was  received  by  the  people  of  the  North.  In  all  the  siege  not 
a  drop  of  blood  was  shed  on  either  side,  but  if  it  had  flowed  in  rivers 
over  the  wTalls  of  Sumter,  it  could  not  have  intensified  the  feeling. 
No  one  living  in  the  North  will  ever  forget  the  great  uprising  of  its 
people,  when  the  news  of  Sumter’s  bombardment  was  sent  over  the 
telegraph  wires  into  every  city,  town,  and  hamlet  in  the  North.  At 
once  the  people  of  different  political  parties,  so  hostile  before,  became 


Banner  of  South  Carolina. 


Fort  Sumter  after  Bombardment. 


like  brothers.  Democrats  and  Republicans  were  all  one  when  the 
safety  of  the  nation  was  at  stake.  When  close  following  the  attack 
on  Sumter  came  the  news  that  President  Lincoln  had  asked  for 


* 


. 


■ 


BEGINNING  OF  HOSTILITIES. 


443 


75,000  men  as  volunteers  to  help  him  restore  public  order  and  “  pre¬ 
serve  the  Union,”  it  seemed  as  if  every  able  bodied  man  in  the  North 
was  ready  to  shoulder  a  musket.  Men  enlisted  in  the  ranks  who 
had  been  bred  in  luxury,  and  submitted  with  cheerfulness  to  the 
privations  endured  by  the  common  soldier.  Into  the  smallest  vil¬ 
lages  the  war  ardor  penetrated,  and  companies  were  drilling  and  pa¬ 
rading  in  the  little  towns  of  the  far  West,  before  Mr.  Lincoln’s 
dispatch  was  two  days  old.  The  man  of  military  knowledge  and  ex¬ 
perience  was  the  hero  of  the  hour.  W omen  were  as  ardent  as  men  in 
patriotism,  and  they  assembled  in  crowds  at  every  railway  station 
from  whence  the  embarking  troops  set  out  waving  their  handker¬ 
chiefs  and  fluttering  patriotic  ribbons  of  red,  white,  and  blue,  till 
they  watched  their  soldiers  out  of  sight.  The  American  flag  became 
more  than  ever  a  sacred  emblem,  and  many  eyes  filled  with  tears  at 
the  thought  of  it  dragged  down  and  trampled  in  the  dust. 

Of  course  there  were  still  many  in  the  North  who  sympathized 
with  the  South,  and  believed  in  the  right  of  secession.  Up  to  this 
time  the  South  had  believed  that  they  had  friends  enough  in  the 
North  to  fight  their  battles  for  them  in  the  cities  of  the  free  States. 
Ex-president  Franklin  Pierce  had  just  written  Jefferson  Davis,  that 
he  believed  if  the  war  came,  it  would  be  fought  in  the  North  be¬ 
tween  the  friends  and  enemies  of  the  South  there.  Bat  the  events 
following  the  bombardment  of  Sumter  proved  the  contrary,  and  for 
a  time  hardly  a  voice  could  be  heard  in  favor  of  secession,  or  the 
“  Southern  Confederacy.” 

In  the  South,  the  same  manifestations  of  feeling  prevailed  as  in 
the  North.  When  news  came  that  Sumter  was  in  the  hands  of 
South  Carolina,  extravagant  joy  was  shown.  Regiments  were  form¬ 
ing  everywhere  to  resist  any  attempt  to  force  the  seceded  States  into 
the  Union.  The  women  cheered  on  the  men ;  made  cockades  of 
the  secession  colors ;  sang  new  songs  written  in  the  popular  vein  of 
excitement ;  and  refused  to  notice  the  young  men  who  would  not 
enlist  for  the  coming  war.  Many  ardent  Southerners  who  had  hated 
the  “  Yankees  ”  from  birth,  welcomed  this  opportunity  of  freeing 
themselves  from  a  bond  of  union  which  had  always  been  irksome. 
They  felt  as  their  fathers  had  felt  in  the  days  of  the  Revolution,  and 
men  and  women  announced  themselves  ready  to  give  their  lives  and 
their  fortunes  for  the  “  Sacred  cause  of  liberty  to  the  South.” 


444 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


CHAPTER  XXXII. 

THE  MARCH  THROUGH  BALTIMORE. 

The  Regiment  from  Massachusetts.  —  Mob  in  Baltimore.  —  Anniversary  of  Battle  of  Lexington. 

—  General  Scott.  —  The  Seventh  Regiment  of  New  York. — A  Volunteer  Officer. — Fed¬ 
eral  Hill. 

On  the  19th  of  April  the  first  volunteer  troops  entered  Bal¬ 
timore  on  their  march  to  Washington.  The  State  of  Maryland 
had  not  seceded,  and  thanks  to  a  few  loyal  men  who  led  her  through 
her  hour  of  danger  and  disloyalty,  she  never  did  secede.  But  Bal¬ 
timore  overflowed  with  bitterness  and  cursing  against  the  Union 
and  the  men  who  came  to  defend  her,  and  on  this  morning  the 
streets  were  filled  with  a  scowling,  angry  mob,  as  the  cars  —  eleven 
in  all  —  containing  the  Sixth  Massachusetts  regiment,  rolled  into 
town.  These  cars  were  drawn  by  horses  across  the  city  from  one 
railroad  station  to  another.  As  they  penetrated  farther  into  the 
city,  the  crowd  became  more  dense,  and  the  faces  grew  blacker 
with  hate.  The  mob  now  bore  sticks,  paving  stones,  and  occasion¬ 
ally  a  gun  or  a  revolver  was  seen  among  them.  Stones,  brickbats, 
and  all  kinds  of  missiles  were  thrown  through  the  windows  of  the 
cars.  At  first  the  soldiers  bore  it  patiently,  and  without  resistance, 
until  all  but  two  of  the  cars  reached  the  station.  These  two,  sep¬ 
arated  from  the  others,  were  surrounded  by  a  yelling  crowd  that 
opposed  their  passage.  The  officers  consulted,  and  concluded  to 
disembark  the  men  and  march  them  in  a  solid  column  to  the  sta¬ 
tions.  The  brave  fellows  went  on  through  a  shower  of  stones, 
bricks,  and  scattering  shots  from  revolvers.  At  last,  just  before 
they  reached  the  station,  the  colonel  gave  orders  to  fire.  The  sol¬ 
diers  discharged  their  guns  among  the  crowd,  and  several  among 
the  mob  fell  dead  or  wounded.  The  troops  reached  the  station  and 
entered  the  cars.  “  The  scene  that  ensued  was  terrific,”  says  one  of 
the  historians  of  the  war.1  “  Taunts,  clothed  in  most  fearful  lan¬ 
guage,  were  hurled  at  the  troops  by  the  panting  crowd,  who,  breath¬ 
less  with  running,  pressed  up  to  the  windows,  presenting  knives  and 
revolvers,  and  cursing  up  into  the  faces  of  the  soldiers.”  Amid  such 
a  scene  the  Massachusetts  regiment  passed  out  of  the  city,  bearing 
with  them  three  dead  bodies  of  their  number,  and  eighteen 
wounded.  On  this  very  day,  the  19th  of  April,  eighty-five  years 


1  Pollard’s  Lost  Cause. 


THE  MARCH  THROUGH  BALTIMORE. 


445 


before,  tbe  first  blood  shed  in  the  War  of  the  Revolution  had  stained 
the  grass  in  front  of  Lexington  meeting-house.  On  this  second 
anniversary,  long  to  be  remembered,  the  first  blood  in  this  civil 
war  flowed  in  the  streets  of  Baltimore,  shed  from  the  veins,  very 
likely,  of  the  descendants  of  these  early  patriots. 

About  this  time  the  country  was  filled  with  rumors  that  Wash¬ 
ington,  the  national  capital,  was  to  be  seized  by  the  rebels.  They 
had  threatened,  ever  since  the  fall  of  Sumter,  to  unfurl  their  flag 
from  the  capitol  at  Washington,  even  from  Faneuil  Hall  in  Boston. 
Washington  was  poorly  guarded.  The  disbelief  in  Southern  seces¬ 
sion  seems  to  have  kept  all  Northern  eyes  and  ears  closed  against 
danger  until  the  Massachusetts  regiment  was  attacked. 


Union  Square,  New  York,  April,  1861. 


General  Scott,  the  hero  of  two  wars,  and  now  the  veteran  general- 
in-chief  of  the  Northern  army,  had  his  head-quarters  in  Washington. 
But  at  this  moment  the  communication  through  Maryland  between 
our  national  capital  and  the  North  was  cut  off,  and  it  seemed  pos¬ 
sible  that  at  any  moment  the  president  and  his  officers  might  be 
captured  in  the  exposed  city.  The  cry  arose,  “  Washington  is  in 
danger.”  General  Wool,  who  fought  beside  Scott  in  Canada  and 
Mexico,  as  loyal  now  to  his  flag  as  in  his  youthful  days,  was  in  New 
York,  giving  all  his  energy  to  putting  down  treason.  He  caused  arms 


446 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


to  be  distributed  ;  troops  to  be  sent  forward.  The'  Seventh  regi¬ 
ment  of  New  York,  a  regiment  up  to  this  time  kept  for  parade,  and 
not  for  such  work  as  war  furnishes,  offered  itself  for  the  field,  and 
for  the  protection  of  the  capitol.  It  was  made  up  of  the  very  flower 
of  volunteer  troops,  of  young  men  used  to  dainty  fare  and  soft  beds. 
But  they  came  out  gallantly  in  full  force,  and  early  in  April  were 
marching  down  Broadway,  the  main  street  of  New  York  city,  to 
embark  for  Washington.  The  day  of  that  march  will  be  long  re¬ 
membered  by  the  citizens.  Crowds  filled  the  sidewalks,  and  cheers 
rent  the  air  as  those  boys  marched  down  the  splendid  street.  The 
deadest  heart  quickened  in  the  dullest  bosom  at  the  sight  of  them, 
and  the  sound  of  the  cheers.  In  their  ranks  was  a  young  man 
named  Theodore  Winthrop,  who  welcomed  the  approaching  war 
as  one  from  which  a  better  future  for  his  country  was  sure  to 
arise.  He  bore  one  of  the  noblest  names  in  New  England  history, 
and  was  worthy  both  by  nature  and  by  descent  to  be  a  martyr  in 
such  a  cause  as  this.  Writing  of  this  march  down  Broadway,  he 
said,  “  It  was  worth  a  life,  that  march.  Only  one  who  passed  as  we 
did  through  that  tempest  of  cheers,  two  miles  long,  can  know  the 
terrible  enthusiasm  of  the  occasion.  We  knew  now,  if  we  had  not 
before  divined  it,  that  our  great  city  was  with  us  as  one  man,  utterly 
united  in  the  cause  we  were  marching  to  sustain.” 

The  Seventh  regiment  was  joined  by  the  Eighth  Massachusetts,  ac¬ 
companied  by  Benjamin  F.  Butler  of  Massachusetts,  one  of  the  vol¬ 
unteer  generals,  who  had  left  his  law  office  to  take  a  command  in  the 
gathering  army.  General  Butler  had  been  a  Democrat  of  strong 
Southern  sympathies.  He  had  favored  concession  after  concession 
to  the  slave  power.  But  when  in  the  Democratic  convention  of  1860 
which  met  in  Charleston,  where  he  was  sent  as  a  member  from 
Massachusetts,  the  reopening  of  the  slave-trade  was  urged,  Ben¬ 
jamin  Butler  had  said  to  his  colleagues,  “  I  will  not  sit  in  a  conven¬ 
tion  which  advocates  a  commerce  pronounced  piracy  by  the  laws  of 
my  country,”  and  thereupon  left  the  convention. 

When  his  Southern  friends  and  fellow  politicians  told  him  they 
meant  to  secede,  he  asked  coolly,  “Are  you  prepared  for  war,  then.” 
“  Oh,  the  North  will  not  fight,”  was  the  contemptuous  answer. 
“The  North  will  fight,”  returned  Butler.  “The  moment  you  fire 
on  the  flag,  the  North  will  be  a  unit  against  you.  And  rest  assured, 
if  the  war  comes,  slavery  will  end.”  And  this  man  was  one  of  the 
first  to  ask  a  place  in  the  army  of  the  Union.  You  can  fancy  what 


THE  MARCH  THROUGH  BALTIMORE.  447 

a  blow  it  was  to  the  hopes  of  the  South  that  their  Northern  friends 
would  be  their  allies  in  this  rebellion,  when  such  men  as  Benjamin 
Butler  appeared  in  the  field  against  them. 

It  was  no  longer  safe  to  march  troops  through  Baltimore,  and 
Butler  therefore  led  them  around  the  city.  They  were  embarked 
at  the  head  of  Chesapeake  Bay,  and  sent  by  steamers  down  the 
river  to  Annapolis.  From  that  city  the  Seventh  New  York  regi¬ 
ment  marched  down  through  Maryland  to  the  capital,  and  on  the 
25tli  of  April  they  entered  Washington  and  marched  to  the  capitol 
buildings.  The  country  breathed  freely.  Washington  was  saved 
from  its  foes. 

One  thing  was  certain.  A  way  must  be  made  through  Baltimore 
for  the  march  of  the  troops  southward.  There  were  plenty  of  Union 
men  and  women  in  Baltimore,  but  just  now  they  were  overborne 
and  kept  under  by  the  secessionists.  Benjamin  Butler  proposed  to 
free  the  city  from  their  rule  and  establish  law  and  order  there. 


Federal  Hill. 


Accordingly  he  moved  northward  from  Annapolis  and  seized  a  rail¬ 
way  station  nine  miles  south  of  the  city.  He  remained  near  Balti¬ 
more  until  the  night  of  the  13th  of  May,  when,  under  cover  of  a 
black  thunder-storm,  he  took  up  a  station  with  his  troops  on  Fed¬ 
eral  Hill,  commanding  the  city.  On  that  very  hill,  in  1787,  the  loyal 
people  of  Maryland  had  celebrated  with  splendid  rites  the  adoption 
of  the  National  Constitution.  From  the  brow  of  this  same  eminence, 
on  the  14th  of  May,  1861,  the  black  throats  of  the  cannon  leveled 

towards  Baltimore,  were  prepared  to  thunder  forth  their  commands 

29 


448 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


of  obedience  to  the  laws  of  this  Constitution.  The  loyal  citizens 
of  Baltimore  rejoiced ;  treason  was  suppressed,  and  from  that  hour 
national  troops  marched  through  Maryland  unmolested  by  mobs. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

THE  SECEDING  STATES. 

An  Armed  Rebellion.  —  The  Southern  Confederacy.  —  The  Seven  Pioneers  of  Secession.  — 
East  Tennessee. — The  Stars  and  Bars. — Ellsworth  Zouaves. — Death  of  Ellsworth. — 
Contrabands.  —  Theodore  Winthrop. 

After  the  attack  on  the  Massachusetts  soldiers  at  Baltimore, 
and  the  march  of  the  troops  on  Washington,  even  the  people  in  the 
North  most  reluctant  to  believe  in  war,  began  to  see  that  it  was 
already  at  their  doors.  A  few  Northern  newspapers  talked  against 
“coercing  the  South,'’  the  “  wickedness  of  invading  sister  States,” 
and  the  “horrors  of  fratricidal  war,”  but  the  great  party  said: 
“  This  is  an  armed  rebellion,  which  must  be  put  down  by  arms,  or 
the  nation’s  life  is  destroyed.”  Let  us  look  for  a  moment  at  the 
two  divisions  of  the  country  thus  up  in  arms  against  each  other. 

After  the  Southern  States  had  formed  their  confederacy,  they  con¬ 
fidently  expected  the  eight  other  slave-holding  States  would  at  once 
flock  to  join  them.  But  this  was  not  so  easy  a  matter  as  the  seces¬ 
sionists  believed.  The  States  which  had  at  first  taken  themselves 
out  of  the  Union  were  the  farthest  remote  from  the  North.  Be¬ 
tween  them  and  the  Middle  and  Northwestern  States  lay  Maryland, 
Delaware,  Kentucky ,  Missouri ,  all  bordering  on  the  free  States,  and 
known  as  the  “  Border  States.”  By  their  position  they  were  more 
exposed  to  influences  from  the  North.  West  Virginia,  East  Ten¬ 
nessee,  and  part  of  North  Carolina  were  all  mountainous  regions, 
and  slavery  had  never  flourished  well  among  mountains.  It  is  cer¬ 
tain  that  some  of  the  most  ardent  Unionists  dwelt  in  the  mountain 
regions  of  these  three  States,  and  suffered  for  their  devotion  to  the 
nation  as  no  others  suffered  in  the  great  struggle. 

The  first  to  follow  the  lead  of  the  seven  pioneers  of  rebellion  was 
Virginia.  As  soon  as  Fort  Sumter  was  fired  upon,  she  passed  an 
“  act  of  secession,”  and  was  received  with  boisterous  delight  as  the 
“  eighth  Confederate  State.”  “Virginia,  the  mother  of  the  presi¬ 
dents,  has  joined  our  ranks,”  they  cried.  But  the  people  of  West 


THE  SECEDING  STATES. 


449 


Virginia,  across  the  Alleghany  Mountains,  loyal  to  the  core,  resisted 
with  might  and  main  the  action  of  the  eastern  part  of  the  State. 
The  secession  act  passed  in  April,  and  in  June  the  western  counties 
declared  themselves  “the  State  of  West  Virginia,”  and  one  of  the 
United  States.  They  maintained  their  position,  and  finally  tri¬ 
umphed.  Before  the  war  was  over,  West  Virginia  was  made  a  sep¬ 
arate  State,  and  was  forever  divided  from  Old  Virginia. 

The  next  State  to  leave  the  Union  was  Arkansas.  Early  in  May, 
her  governor,  aided  by  a  few  powerful  politicians,  joined  her  for¬ 
tunes  to  the  “  Confederacy,”  although  the  State  had  before  voted 
not  to  secede.  On  the  20th  of  May  North  Carolina  followed,  in 
spite  of  many  Unionists  dwelling  on  her  soil.  She  seceded  on  the 
anniversary  of  that  day  in  1775  on  which  her  fathers  in  the  Revolu¬ 
tion  had  declared  themselves  free  from  English  rule.  Tearing  down 
the  old  flag  she  put  up  a  new  one  in  its 
stead,  which  still  bore  the  tri-color  of  the 
republic.  On  the  8th  of  June  Tennessee 
held  a  secession  convention.  The  loyal 
men  from  the  eastern  part  of  the  State  were 
prepared  to  vote  against  secession.  It  was 
hoped  that  a  majority,  peaceably  obtained, 
would  preserve  the  State.  But  they  were  The  Secession  Flag, 
warned  that  no  man  could  vote  for  the  Union  in  the  convention. 
“  If  he  speaks  for  the  South,  we  have  no  reply,”  wrote  one  of  the 
secessionists  of  Tennessee  in  reference  to  a  loyal  man  who  wished  to 
speak  in  the  convention.1  “If  against  the  South,  our  only  answer 
to  him  and  his  backers  must  be  cold  steel  and  bullets.”  By  thus 
choking  down  free  speech,  Tennessee  was  joined  to  the  Southern 
Confederacy.  But  the  mountains  of  East  Tennessee  were  full  of 
Union  men  who  suffered  terribly  for  devotion  to  their  country. 
Hunted  like  dogs  by  rebel  guerrillas  ;  pinched  with  cold  and  with 
hunger  ;  killed  on  their  very  hearth-stones  under  the  eyes  of  wife 
and  children  ;  these  men  clung  to  the  Union  and  their  flag,  as  mar¬ 
tyrs  cling  to  the  cross  for  which  they  die.  With  Virginia,  Tennes¬ 
see,  North  Carolina,  and  Arkansas,  the  Southern  Confederacy  had 
eleven  States.  Delaware,  Maryland,  Kentucky,  and  Missouri  did 
not  join  them.  Little  Delaware  had  no  inclination  to  leave  her 
comfortable  corner  in  the  Union  for  the  uncertainties  of  a  rebellion. 
Maryland,  awed  by  Butler’s  resolute  action,  was  held  firm  by  the 

1  Greeley’s  American  Conflict. 


450 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


loyal  men  who  guarded  her  honor,  and  preserved  her  to  the  right 
cause  in  spite  of  the  many  traitors  in  her  borders.  Kentucky  de¬ 
cided  to  be  “  neutral.”  She  would  not  leave  the  Union,  and  she 
would  not  fight  the  South.  She  was  constantly  torn  by  dissensions. 
Many  of  her  sons  found  honorable  graves  in  fighting  for  their  old 
flag  ;  many  others  fell  in  the  ranks  of  the  rebel  army.  Missouri,  the 
most  western  border  State,  was  also  divided  by  hostile  factions,  but 
the  valor  of  a  few  men  kept  her  in  the  Union  ranks.  She  was,  for 
a  time,  one  of  the  battle-fields  of  the  republic,  and  I  will  tell  you 
presently  how  well  she  was  defended  by  some  of  her  sons  from  the 
attack  of  treason. 


44 


The  campaign  of  1861,  the  opening  year  of  the  war,  was  princi¬ 
pally  in  the  border  States  of  Virginia  and  Missouri.  The  border 
States  were  the  great  breakwater  to  hold  back  the  tide  of  insurrec¬ 
tion.  The  loyalists  felt  they  must  hold  them  securely  and  keep  up 
the  conflict  within  their  limits,  or  the  whole  countrv  would  be 
plunged  into  ruin.  Let  us  see  how  the  struggle  went  on  in  Vir¬ 
ginia  and  Missouri  after  the  war  had  actually  begun. 

While  the  rebels  were  talking  about  the  capture  of  Washington, 
the  “  Yankee  capital,  '  they  were  making  terrible  threats  against 
the  United  States  government  if  it  should  “  invade  the  South,”  and 
plant  troops  on  the  sacred  soil  of  Virginia.”  But  by  the  last  of 

May  the  government  saw  that  it  was 
necessary  to  its  safety  to  send  troops 
into  Virginia.  Already  the  new  Con¬ 
federate  flag  of  “  stars  and  bars  ”  waved 
in  full  sight  of  the  capital,  from  the  town 
of  Alexandria,  and  from  the  top  of  Ar¬ 
lington  Heights,  where  Colonel  Lee,  the 
leader  of  the  rebel  forces  in  Virginia, 
had  his  dwelling-place,  the  same  emblem 
flaunted.  On  the  24th  of  May  the  na¬ 
tional  troops  crossed  the  Potomac  and 
took  possession  of  Alexandria.  A  regi¬ 
ment  called  the  New  York  Zouaves,  com¬ 
manded  by  Colonel  Ephraim  E.  Ells¬ 
worth,  first  entered  the  town.  Ellsworth 
was  young,  handsome,  and  daring,  and 


Zouave. 


his  Zouaves,  dressed  in  brilliant  uniforms  of  red,  blue,  and  yellow, 
after  the  costume  of  a  French  corps  who  had  served  in  the  Crimean 
War,  were  the  admiration  of  all  who  saw  them. 


THE  SECEDING  STATES. 


451 


As  soon  as  Ellsworth  entered  the  town,  he  went  straight  to  the 
Marshall  House,  from  whose  top  the  secession  flag  was  waving.  He 
ran  quickly  up-stairs,  pulled  down  the  banner  and  descended,  fold¬ 
ing  it  together.  The  tavern-keeper,  a  man  named  Jackson,  stand¬ 
ing  at  the  foot  of  the  stairway  with  a  gun,  shot  him  as  he  came 
down.  With  one  cry,  the  gayly  dressed  young  colonel  fell  dead  at 
the  foot  of  the  stairs.  In  another  moment  one  of  Ellsworth’s  men 
had  shot  Jackson,  killing  him  instantly,  and  the  two  bodies  lay  to¬ 
gether  in  the  passage.  Young  Ellsworth  was  the  first  officer  killed, 
and  his  death  created  the  most  intense  excitement  in  the  North. 

Almost  at  the  same  time  that 
Ellsworth  was  ordered  to  Alexan¬ 
dria,  General  Benjamin  Butler  was 
relieved  from  guarding  Baltimore, 
and  sent  to  command  Fortress  Mon¬ 
roe,  which  lay  between  the  entrance 
to  the  James  River  and  the  entrance 
to  Chesapeake  Bay.  I  have  told 
you  that  the  rebels  seized  nearly  all 
the  forts  on  the  southern  coast  from 
Maryland  to  Texas.  There  were  a 

few  of  the  forts,  however,  which  had  Ephraim  e.  Ellsworth, 

been  preserved  to  the  government  by  the  unflinching  loyalty  of 
their  commanders.  One  of  these  was  Fort  Pickens,  at  the  mouth  of 
Pensacola  Bay  in  Florida,  where  Lieutenant  Slemmer  had  held  out 
till  the  government  could  reinforce  him,  after  all  the  other  forts  in 
the  Gulf  had  been  given  up  through  treason  or  cowardice.  Another 
most  important  point  was  Fortress  Monroe,  where  Colonel  Dimick, 
with  three  hundred  men,  had  guarded  a  long  line  of  ramparts,  with 
secession  up  in  arms  all  about  him.  To  this  latter  fort  Butler  came 
on  the  22d  of  May,  1861. 

Almost  immediately  Butler  began  making  little  incursions  into 
the  country  about  the  fort  to  study  the  situation,  and  report  upon 
the  condition  of  affairs  there.  As  soon  as  the  army  approached,  they 
were  greeted  with  delight  by  the  negroes,  who  flocked  to  the  soldiers, 
singing  to  each  other,  “  The  day  of  jubilee  has  come.”  The  ques¬ 
tion  “what  to  do  with  the  negroes?”  promised  to  be  one  of  the 
most  perplexing  of  the  war.  The  North,  through  the  government 
and  the  newspapers,  were  all  the  time  declaring  that  this  was  not  a 
war  to  abolish  slavery,  it  was  solely  to  preserve  the  Union.  Many 


452 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


of  the  soldiers  in  the  Northern  army  hated  the  word  “  Abolition,” 
and  declared  “  they  were  not  going  to  fight  for  the  negro,  but  only 

for  UNION.”  Already  many 
negroes  who  sought  freedom  on 
the  approach  of  the  army,  had 
been  sent  back  to  their  masters  ; 
and  the  inquiry, 41  What  shall  we 
do  with  the  negro?”  was  asked 
again  and  again.  Benjamin  But¬ 
ler,  an  old  pro-slavery  Democrat, 
the  least  likely  to  be  sentimental 
to  the  negroes,  cut  the  knot  of 
difficulty  by  a  very  direct  action. 
He  said,  “In  an  enemy’s  country 
all  his  property,  such  as  flour,  cotton,  gunpowder,  or  arms,  become 
‘contraband  of  war.’  They  belong  to  the  victor,  and  are  used  by 
him  to  strengthen  his  army  and  thus  to  compel  peace.  This  two- 
legged  property  of  the  slave-holder  is  also  ‘contraband  of  war.’  Let 
us  take  him  and  use  him  to  dig  on  our  fortifications  as  we  would  use 
any  other  of  the  enemy’s  property  if  we  needed  it.”  This  was  sound 
logic,  and  went  right  to  the  root  of  the  matter.  From  that  time  the 
war  name  of  the  negro  was  a  “contraband,”  and  the  whole  army  soon 
knew  them  by  that  name. 

As  soon  as  Butler  found  himself  fairly  established  at  the  fort,  he 
began  to  take  measures  to  strengthen  his  position  there.  First,  he 
sent  over  and  fortified  the  point  called  Newport  News,  still  farther 
up  the  mouth  of  the  river.  Then  he  kept  scouts  always  on  the  alert 
to  catch  any  new  movement  of  the  enemy. 

Butler  had  with  him  in  the  fortress  young  Theodore  Winthrop, 
whom  we  saw  marching  down  Broadway  in  the  Seventh  regiment. 
That  regiment,  having  finished  its  duty  of  guarding  Washington, 
was  sent  home,  but  Winthrop  had  eagerly  offered  himself  to  Gen¬ 
eral  Butler,  and  was  now  his  secretary  and  military  aid.  From  a 
“  contraband  ”  friend,  Winthrop  had  found  out  several  facts  about 
the  enemy.  The  forces  of  the  rebel  Colonel  Magruder,  about  two 
thousand  men  in  all,  were  encamped  at  two  churches  known  as 
“  Little  Bethel  ”  and  “  Big  Bethel,”  to  the  north  of  Newport  News. 
General  Butler  and  his  aid,  who  now  bore  the  commission  of  major, 
together  drew  up  a  plan  of  attack,  as  follows :  — 

The  troops,  divided  into  two  bodies,  were  to  attack  Little  Bethel. 


Exodus  of  Slaves. 


WESTERN  VIRGINIA. 


453 


One  party  in  front,  and  the  other  in  the  rear,  thus  cutting  them  off 
from  their  companions  at  Big  Bethel.  After  capturing  them  at  the 
first  point,  they  were  to  march  to  Big  Bethel  and  finish  the  enemy 
there.  The  two  bodies  marched  under  cover  of  darkness,  and  from 
this  a  fatal  mistake  arose.  Just  as  they  neared  Little  Bethel  the 
two  divisions  met,  and  mistaking  friends  for  foes  in  the  uncertain 
light,  they  fired  into  each  other’s  ranks,  and  killed  and  wounded 
several  before  the  error  was  discovered.  The  firing  warned  the 
rebels  whom  they  were  marching  to  surprise,  and  the  force  at  Little 
Bethel  made  an  immediate  retreat  to  join  their  friends  at  the  other 
church.  General  Pierce,  who  commanded  the  expedition,  marched 
on  towards  Big  Bethel.  But  by  this  time  the  rebels  were  prepared, 
and  from  behind  intrenchments  of  earth  they  rained  a  hot  fire  on 
our  men.  Major  Winthrop  mounted  a  log  near  the  outworks  to 
cheer  on  his  men,  and  in  the  very  ardor  of  the  charge  was  shot 
through  the  brain  and  fell  instantly.  Almost  at  the  same  moment 
Lieutenant  Greble,  a  young  ar¬ 
tillery  officer,  was  shot  dead  at 
his  guns.  Both  these  deaths 
caused  great  mourning.  The 
loss  of  Winthrop,  just  in  the 
opening  of  a  career  of  such 
promise,  was  felt  by  the  country 
as  if  she  had  lost  her  dearest 
son.  The  names  of  Ellsworth, 

Greble,  and  Winthrop  headed 
the  list  of  that  vast  army  of 
patriots  who  fell  in  the  nation’s 
defense.  Before  long  it  had  swelled  to  such  numbers  that  deaths 
like  theirs  made  hardly  a  ripple  of  excitement  except  in  the  home 
circle  which  missed  them,  and  had  thus  lost  them  forever. 


An  Army  Forge. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

WESTERN  VIRGINIA. 

The  Ghost  of  Caesar. — Rich  Mountain.  —  Carrick’s  Ford.  —  Union  Defeat.  —  Loyalty  in  the 

Mountains. 

West  Virginia  is  one  of  the  most  mountainous  regions  in  this 
country.  The  Alleghanies  divided  in  two  the  State  of  old  Virginia, 


454 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


and  the  western  half  was  formed  of  steep  mountains  and  interlac¬ 
ing  hills,  from  whose  sides  rapid  flowing  rivers  rush  off  to  pour 
themselves  into  the  great  Ohio  which  bounds  West  Virginia.  As  I 
have  told  you,  the  people  in  these  wild  mountain  regions  were  patri¬ 
otic  to  the  core,  and  determined  to  resist  rebellion.  Early  in  June, 
the  rebels  had  sent  an  army  to  Philippi,  under  the  rebel  General 
Porterfield,  to  awe  the  people  into  disunion.  Philippi  is  the  name  of 
the  place  in  Roman  history  where  Brutus  saw  the  ghost  of  murdered 
Caesar.  I  do  not  know  what  sort  of  dreams  the  rebel  general  had 
at  this  modern  Philippi,  but  I  am  sure  they  were  not  the  kind  of 
visions  that  arise  from  a  patriotic  conscience.  On  the  night  of  the 
2d  of  June,  a  party  of  Union  forces  were  marching  towards  Phil¬ 
ippi.  They  were  divided  into  two  columns,  —  General  Kelly  in 
command  of  one,  and  Colonel  Dumont  of  the  other.  It  was  pitchy 
dark,  and  a  rain  fell,  wetting  them  all  to  the  skin.  Dumont  arrived 
first,  and  began  the  attack  without  waiting  for  the  other  column. 
He  had  almost  beaten  the  enemy  when  Kelly  came  up  to  see  their 
retreat  and  receive  a  dangerous  wound  as  a  farewell  from  the  flying 
rebels.  This  was  the  first  battle  after  war  had  really  opened. 

The  Union  troops  in  Ohio  and  West  Virginia  were  all  placed 
under  command  of  General  George  B.  McClellan,  an  officer  who 
had  graduated  with  honor  from  the  military  school  at  West  Point, 
and  gained  some  warlike  experiences  in  Mexico.  He  was  still 
young,  with  fine  soldierly  bearing,  a  good  disciplinarian,  and  adored 
by  his  soldiers.  On  the  23d  of  June  lie  came  into  Virginia  to  take 
command  in  person.  He  had  with  him  General  Rosecrans,  whom 
he  at  once  sent  to  attack  a  part  of  the  enemy  on  Rich  Mountain. 
General  Garnett  was  commanding  all  the  rebel  forces  in  West  Vir¬ 
ginia,  and  he  had  posted  Colonel  Pegram  with  1,600  men  on  Rich 
Mountain,  and  was  encamped  himself  on  Laurel  Hill,  a  few  miles 
distant,  with  a  much  larger  force.  Rosecrans  took  3,000  men  for  his 
march  up  the  steepy  sides  of  Rich  Mountain.  It  was  raining  hard  — 
it  seems  always  to  have  rained  in  West  Virginia  in  these  days  — 
and  it  was  hard  climbing.  The  soldiers  dragged  themselves  up  as 
best  they  could,  and  when  fairly  on  the  top  found  that  they  had 
gained  a  position  above  Pegram,  and  in  his  rear.  The  Unionists 
charged  down  upon  them  and  put  them  all  to  flight.  Pegram  wan¬ 
dered  about  all  night  trying  to  make  a  safe  retreat,  and  by  daylight 
of  July  12th  came  up  and  surrendered  to  Rosecrans  his  remaining 
army  —  about  six  hundred  men. 


WESTERN  VIRGINIA. 


455 


came  in  sight  of  the  fugitives  at  a  fording  place  in  the  river,  called 
“  Carrick’s  Ford.”  Here  Garnett  turned  to  give  battle  and  stood 
bravely  at  bay.  His  men  were  routed,  but  General  Garnett  would 
not  flee.  Standing  almost  alone  on  the  field,  he  was'  shot  dead  by  a 
rifle  in  the  hands  of  a  sharp-shooter.  Only  one  youth,  scarcely  more 
than  a  boy,  was  with  him  when  he  fell,  still  fighting  gallantly. 
This  boy  shared  the  fate  of  his  general. 

In  the  mean  time  General  Henry  A.  Wise  had  an  army  in  the 
Kanawha  Valley,  down  among  the  mountains  near  the  centre  of  the 
State.  Wise  was  the  governor  who  hung  John  Brown,  and  was  then 
very  severe  on  treason.  General  Cox  went  in  pursuit  of  him,  when 
Wise  immediately  began  to  retreat  towards  General  Floyd,  who 
was  coming  from  the  South  with  more  soldiers.  It  looked  as  if 
the  rebels  meant  to  hold  Western  Virginia.  General  Floyd  had 
been  secretary  of  war  in  Buchanan’s  time,  and  had  greatly  aided 
the  South  by  sending  thousands  of  United  States  muskets  thither 
from  Springfield  arsenal,  just  before  the  States  seceded. 


Carrick’s  Ford. 


As  soon  as  General  Garnett  heard  of  Pegram's  misfortune  he  took 
up  camp  and  began  a  retreat  to  the  Cheat  River.  He  took  his  way 
through  difficult  mountain  passes  pursued  by  another  part  of  Mc¬ 
Clellan’s  forces.  On  the  way  the  rebel  soldiers  threw  away  their 
guns,  knapsacks,  blankets,  anything  that  would  lighten  their  march. 
The  Unionists  followed  closely  on  their  heels.  At  length  they 


456 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


He  was  marching  along  the  Gauley  River  to  meet  Wise,  when  he 
heard  that  the  Union  troops  were  close  upon  him.  He  got  up  early, 
made  a  countermarch,  surprised  the  Union  troops  while  they  were 
eating  breakfast,  and  routed  them  completely.  Then  Floyd  came 
triumphantly  back  to  Carnifax  Ferry  on  the  Gauley  River,  and  sat 
down  there  to  wait.  Rosecrans,  always  wide  awake,  was  soon  on 
the  march  for  Floyd.  He  came  over  the  mountain  which  faces  the 
Gauley  River,  up  a  winding  road  in  the  mountain’s  side,  down  the 
rough  sides  in  front  of  Carnifax.  When  he  had  nearly  reached  the 
river  level  he  saw  Floyd  on  a  wooded  crest  opposite,  with  guns  all 
ready.  It  was  a  good  position  for  Floyd,  and  after  fighting  several 
hours,  the  Unionists  had  the  worst  of  it.  But  in  the  night  the 
rebels  ran  away  and  left  their  post.  Probably  they  felt  they  could 
not  hold  it,  and  were  satisfied  with  what  results  they  had  attained. 
Floyd  marched  again  to  join  Wise,  who  had  built  a  camp  on 
another  mountain,  and  characteristically  named  it  “  Camp  Defi¬ 


ance. 


Just  at  this  time  Robert  E.  Lee,  the  general  of  the  whole  rebel 

army  in  Virginia,  came  out  into 
this  region.  Robert  Lee  had 
been  an  officer  in  the  United 
States  army.  He  was  a  son  of 
brave  Harry  Lee  of  the  Revolu¬ 
tion,  a  man  very  near  to  Wash¬ 
ington’s  heart  and  counsels.  This 


son  Robert  had  married  a  daugh¬ 


ter  of  Washington’s  adopted  son 
George  Custis,  and  was  bound  to 
his  country  by  every  tie  that 
should  make  her  sacred.  He 
avowed  that  he  passed  through  a 
General  Robert  E.  Lee.  terrible  struggle  when  Virginia 

seceded,  between  his  love  for  his  country  and  his  devotion  to  his 
State.  When  he  decided  to  follow  his  State  he  was  at  once  made 
major-general  of  the  rebel  army  in  Virginia.  He  was  especially 
valuable  to  the  Southern  cause,  from  the  fact  that  he  was  a  near 
friend  of  General  Scott,  and  while  undecided  which  cause  he  should 
espouse,  he  had  been  admitted  to  the  war  councils  of  the  general- 
in-chief,  and  was  thus  able  to  carry  with  him  the  plans  of  our 
leading  general.  We  shall  hear  often  of  General  Lee,  for  lie  was 
one  of  the  most  famous  officers  in  the  rebel  army. 


THE  FIRST  GREAT  DEFEAT. 


457 


Lee  then  came  to  West  Virginia  after  Garnett,  Wise,  and  Floyd 
had  failed  to  make  any  impression  there.  At  the  time  of  his  com¬ 
ing,  the  secession  cause  was  weak  in  West  Virginia.  Disloyalty  could 
not  breathe  well  the  pure  air  of  those  mountain-tops.  He  made  one 
ineffective  advance  on  a  part  of  Rosecrans’s  forces  under  General 
Reynolds,  and  very  soon  was  called  back  and  sent  to  a  Southern 
command.  Wise,  who  never  did  much  of  anything  but  bluster  and 
tell  what  he  was  going  to  do,  was  called  to  Richmond.  Floyd  was 
soon  chased  out  of  the  loyal  half  of  Virginia.  In  the  northeast, 
Kelly,  who  was  able  to  take  the  field  again,  was  dealing  hard  knocks 
to  the  rebels  in  that  part  of  the  State.  On  the  last  day  of  the  year 
1861  General  Milroy  dispersed  the  rebels  in  Huntersville,  where 
they  held  a  strong  post.  West  Virginia  was  all  through  the  war 
a  battle-ground  of  the  republic:  but  little  attempt  was  made  after 
this  to  raise  any  rebel  forces  among  the  inhabitants  there. 


CHAPTER  XXXV. 

THE  FIRST  GREAT  DEFEAT. 

A  Knot  of  Railways.  —  General  Beauregard.  —  A  Moonlight  March.  —  The  Stone  Bridge.  —  The 
Cromwell  of  Rebellion.  —  Stonewall  Jackson.  —  “Johnston’s  Men  are  upon  us.”  —  Bull  Run. 

In  July,  1861,  “the  grand  army  of  the  United  States”  had 
crossed  from  Washington  into  Virginia.  Its  commander  was  Gen¬ 
eral  McDowell,  who  had  won  promotion  years  before,  at  the  battle 
of  Buena  Vista.  He  led  an  army  of  nearly  80,000.  Most  of  them 
were  the  men  whom  Lincoln  had  called  out  to  serve  for  three 
months,  after  Sumter  was  fired  upon.  The  three  months  were 
nearly  up,  and  many  of  the  men  were  ready  to  go  home.  If  they 
had  enlisted  for  three  years,  instead  of  three  months,  they  would 
have  served  patiently  through  their  time.  But  the  near  approach 
of  the  day  which  freed  them  from  the  new  restraints  of  war,  made 
thoughts  of  home  almost  too  strong  for  them. 

The  enemy  against  whom  McDowell  marched,  had  for  some  rea¬ 
son  been  concentrated  at  Manassas  Junction,  a  railway  crossing, 
binding  together  the  railway  lines  of  Virginia  leading  west  and 
south.  To  hold  this  junction  was  to  hold  the  approach  to  Rich¬ 
mond,  now  the  capital  city  of  the  rebels,  where  Jefferson  Davis  was 
sitting  in  state,  as  “  President  of  the  Southern  Confederacy.”  The 


458 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


Southern  army  under  General  Beauregard  were  carefully  guarding 
Manassas. 

Beauregard  was  the  man  who  ordered  the  bombardment  of  Sum- 


Residence  of  Jefferson  Davis. 


ter.  He  was  a  thin,  brown-skinned  little  man,  with  black  eyes  and 
perfectly  white  hair.  Probably  he  hated  the  “  Yankees”  more 
heartily  than  any  other  Southern  general.  “We  shall  whip  the 
North,”  he  said  to  his  army,  “  if  we  have  nothing  for  weapons  but 
flint-lock  muskets  and  pitchforks.”  1 

On  the  20th  of  July  the  rebel  army  occupied  the  west  bank  of 
a  thickly  wooded  stream  known  as  Bull  Run.  It  was  a  branch  of  a 
larger  stream  that  flowed  into  the  Potomac.  Although  not  wide, 
the  current  was  strong,  and  the  water  so  deep  that  it  could  be  forded 
only  at  intervals  of  perhaps  a  mile.  The  rebels  presented  a  front 
of  nearly  eight  miles,  along  this  stream.  Their  right  wing  rested 
on  a  ford  called  Union  Mills  Ford.  Their  left  held  a  stone  bridge 
over  which  one  of  the  main  roads  of  the  country  crossed  Bull  Run. 
Behind  his  lines  Beauregard  was  quietly  encamped  at  Manassas. 
He  knew  McDowell  was  at  Centreville,  only  a  few  miles  east  of 
Bull  Run.  He  was  also  very  well  informed  of  the  movements  and 
plans  of  the  Union  commander,  for  Washington  was  then  swarming 
with  spies,  who,  under  the  garb  of  loyalty,  remained  there  to  fur¬ 
nish  the  rebels  with  information  from  our  army  and  the  government. 
With  Beauregard  was  General  Johnston,  who  had  been  commanding 
the  forces  in  the  Shenandoah  Valley,  in  West  Virginia.  He  had 
arrived  that  very  day  in  Beauregard’s  camp,  and  his  army  of  8,000 
men  were  hurrying  to  join  him  there. 


1  Pollard’s  Lost  Cause. 


THE  FIRST  GREAT  DEFEAT. 


459 


In  the  camp  of  General  McDowell  all  was  preparation.  Saturday 
night,  the  night  of  the  20th,  was  a  glorious  moonlight.  The  men 
were  ordered  to  march  at  half-past  two  on  Sunday  morning,  and 
although  it  was  later  before  they  were  all  ready,  the  moon  had  not 
yet  set,  and  her  soft  light,  pouring  down  on  the  marching  columns, 
made  the  scene  one  of  romantic  beauty.  When  Sunday  dawned, 
the  men  were  on  their  way  to  Bull  Bun,  to  meet  the  enemy  for  the 
first  time. 

McDowell  knew  that  without  reinforcements  the  number  of  Beau¬ 
regard’s  troops  did  not  exceed,  even  if  they  quite  equaled,  his  own. 
He  felt  that  victory  was  sure,  if  Johnston’s  army  did  not  come  to 
Beauregard’s  aid.  And  General  Patterson,  with  18,000  men,  had 
been  sent  to  Shenandoah  to  prevent  Johnston  from  crossing  over  to 
Beauregard.  McDowell  trusted  to  Patterson  to  keep  Johnston  in 


The  Stone  Bridge. 


check.  If  McDowell  could  only  have  known  that  Patterson  had 
proved  incapable,  or  false  to  his  trust,  and  that  at  the  very  moment 
of  the  advance  from  Centre ville,  Johnston  sat  in  council  with  his 
brother  commander  at  Manassas,  hourly  expecting  his  troops  to  join 
him  ! 

It  was  nine  in  the  morning  when  a  division  of  McDowell’s,  under 
General  Hunter,  crossed  a  ford  a  mile  or  two  above  the  enemy’s  left 
and  came  down  upon  them  at  the  “  stone  bridge.”  General  Evans 


460 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


commanded  the  rebels  at  this  point.  He  made  a  good  defense,  but 
was  obliged  to  fall  back  and  give  a  new  front  to  his  assailants. 
General  Bee  with  his  brigade  was  sent  to  aid  him.  Still  Hunter 
pressed  them  farther  and  farther  back  till  they  were  a  mile  and  a 
half  from  the  stream.  Another  brigade  had  been  sent  to  reinforce 
the  Unionists.  This  brigade  belonged  to  an  impetuous,  yellow-haired 
commander,  named  William  T.  Sherman.  The  rebels,  under  Bee 
and  Evans,  severely  pressed,  were  falling  into  disorder.  Already 
the  news  of  victory  had  been  sent  back  to  Washington,  and  the 
telegraph  wires  were  sending  the  glad  tidings  over  all  the  North. 
Members  of  Congress,  and  civilians  of  all  classes,  waited  at  Centre- 
ville  (McDowell’s  head-quarters  of  the  day  before)  the  victorious 
march  of  our  army  towards  Richmond. 

As  Generals  Bee  and  Evans  conducted  their  retreat,  it  was 
checked  by  the  appearance  of  a  man  on  horseback,  sitting  motion¬ 
less  as  marble,  in  front  of  a  brigade  also  waiting  and  immovable. 
This  was  General  Thomas  Jackson  of  Virginia,  with  his  troops.  If 
rebellion  had  its  Cromwell  in  this  war  for  state  rights,  Thomas 
Jackson  was  the  prototype  of  the  old  Puritan  warrior.  Here  he 
sat  grimly  waiting  amid  the  raging  of  the  battle.  His  neck  was 
encased  in  a  high  black  stock  in  which  he  turned  only  his  head  as 
he  gave  his  decisive  orders. 

“  General  Jackson,  they  are  beating  us  back,”  cried  Bee,  despair¬ 
ingly,  at  sight  of  him. 

“  Then  we  will  give  them  the  bayonet,”  coolly  answered  this  im¬ 
perturbable  figure.  Bee  turned  again  to  his  defeated  troops. 

“  Boys,  here  are  Jackson  and  his  Virginians  like  a  STONE-WALL. 
Let  us  resolve  to  die,  and  we  will  conquer.”  The  phrase  “  stone¬ 
wall  ”  became  historical,  and  from  that 
hour  the  grim  commander  was  known 
as  “  Stonewall  Jackson.” 

Down  at  Manassas  Beauregard  and 
Johnston  heard  the  roar  of  guns,  and 
galloped  in  eager  haste  to  the  battle¬ 
field,  ordering  up  fresh  troops  to 
join  their  discouraged  soldiers  on  the 
field.  These  fresh  troops  met  the 
tired  Unionists,  already  gasping  with 
thirst  under  the  July  sun.  The  two 
armies  were  now  on  a  high  plain  above 
the  Run,  bordered  on  two  sides  by 


Stonewall  Jackson. 


THE  FIRST  GREAT  DEFEAT. 


461 


thick  woods.  The  Unionists  still  outnumbered  their  foes,  but  the 
latter  had  stationed  cannon  in  the  woods  which  swept  a  deadly  fire 
through  the  national  lines.  From  high  noon  till  three  o’clock  the 
battle  raged  here.  Back  and  forth,  like  great  waves,  the  lines 
surged  against  each  other.  Guns  were  captured  and  recaptured  on 
both  sides.  Still  victory  remained  undecided. 

All  this  time  Beauregard  and  Johnston  waited  anxiously  to  hear 
from  the  reserve  troops  from  the  Shenandoah,  which  were  hourly 
expected.  The  rebel  general  had  watched  for  their  approach 
through  a  strong  field-glass,  for  hours.  It  was  about  three  o’clock 
when  his  signal  flags  warned  him  that  a  column  was  coming  toward 
the  field.  He  looked  to  see  if  the  “stars  and  stripes,”  or  the 
“  stars  and  bars,”  waved  at  its  head.  If  the  former,  it  would  be 
Patterson  coming  to  the  relief  of  McDowell ;  if  the  latter,  J ohns- 
ton’s  army  was  marching  to  his  aid.  As  he  looked,  the  wind  spread 
out  the  flag.  It  was  the  welcome  banner  of  the  “  Confederacy  !  ” 
Beauregard  knew  then  that  the  day  was  his. 

The  first  warning  the  Unionists  had  of  their  new  enemy,  was  from 
loud  yells  on  all  sides,  as  the  rebels  dashed  upon  them,  led  by  Gen¬ 
eral  Kirby  Smith,  a  recreant  son  of  old  Connecticut.  The  cry 
arose,  “  Johnston’s  men  are  upon  us,”  and  at  once  a  panic  incon¬ 
ceivably  wild  arose  among  them.  In  maddest  confusion,  they  ran 
like  frightened  animals,  with  no  order  or  discipline,  dropping  guns, 
knapsacks,  blankets,  even  hats  and  coats,  by  the  way.  They 
plunged  into  the  stream  and  rushed  on  toward  Centreville.  The 
panic  spread  to  Centreville,  and  the  civilians  there,  infected  with 
the  fear,  fled  toward  Washington.  It  was  the  strangest,  most  dis¬ 
graceful  flight  in  history.  Teamsters  unharnessed  their  horses  and 
fled  with  them,  leaving  the  loaded  teams  in  the  road.  The  way  to 
Washington  was  crowded  with  fugitives.  On  Monday  morning  a 
disorderly  tide  was  still  pouring  into  the  capital,  and  the  deepest 
despair  brooded  over  the  national  council  halls. 

The  North,  which  had  heard  victory  first  claimed  for  its  arms, 
could  hardly  believe  the  shameful  story.  When  at  last  it  realized 
what  a  disgrace  had  fallen  on  it,  the  whole  nation  was  in  mourning. 
Through  all  the  war  there  was  only  one  sadder  day  than  that  in 
which  the  defeat  at  Bull  Run  was  proclaimed  in  the  land. 


462 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


CHAPTER  XXX VL 

THE  GREAT  BORDER  STATE. 

Border  Ruffians.  —  The  Faithful  Germans.  —  Keeping  Neutral.  —  The  “  Rebel  Yell.”  —  Heroic 
Death  of  Lyon.  —  Fremont  in  St.  Louis.  — His  Proclamation.  ■ —  Removal  from  Command.  — 
Fremont’s  Body-guard.  — Charge  of  the  Guard.  —  Beriah  Magoffin.  —  McClellan  commands 
the  Army  of  the  Potomac.  — All  Quiet  on  the  River. 

While  all  these  things  were  happening  in  East  and  West  Vir¬ 
ginia,  important  events  were  taking  place  elsewhere.  From  Mis¬ 
souri  to  Virginia  is  a  long  stride,  but  we  will  make  it  in  imagina¬ 
tion  in  order  that  we  may  see  how  secession  and  loyalty  are  at  work 
there. 

There  was  a  very  strong  secession  spirit  in  Missouri.  The  “  bor¬ 
der  ruffians  ”  of  the  old  Kansas  fights  were  still  living,  and  would 

gladly  have  joined  their  State 
with  the  “  Southern  Confeder¬ 
acy.”  Claiborne  F.  Jackson, 
the  ruling  governor,  was  an  ar¬ 
dent  rebel.  He  had  for  an  ally 
Sterling  Price,  a  former  gov¬ 
ernor  of  Missouri,  a  man  of  mil¬ 
itary  ability  and  experience. 
These  two  men  went  at  once 
to  work  to  raise  an  army, 
claimed  that  this  was  to  be  a 
state  army,  to  protect  Missouri 
against  war  and  invasion,  while  Missouri  would  remain  “  neutral,” 
neither  taking  one  side  nor  the  other.  But  the  fact  that  both  Price 
and  Jackson  were  violent  against  the  United  States  government, 
that  they  were  all  the  time  corresponding  with  rebel  leaders ;  and 
that  they  took  the  first  opportunity  of  joining  their  army  with  the 
rebel  forces  from  Arkansas,  shows  how  much  truth  there  was  in 
their  pretense  of  being  “  neutral.” 

St.  Louis  was  the  great  metropolis  of  all  that  region,  and  sitting 
as  she  does  on  the  Mississippi  River,  was  a  very  important  place  to 
hold.  Fortunately  for  the  national  cause,  she  had  a  large  mass  of 
German  citizens  who  had  left  a  monarchical  government  in  Europe 
for  a  home  in  this  republic.  They  were  devoted  to  their  adopted 
country,  and  firm  friends  to  the  Union ,  and  came  as  one  man  to  its 


THE  GREAT  BORDER  STATE. 


463 


rescue.  Franz  Sigel,  a  soldier  who  had  fought  republican  battles  in 
Germany,  was  ready  to  lead  his  fellow-countrymen.  It  is  difficult 
to  tell  what  might  have  happened  to  St.  Louis  at  that  hour  if  it 
had  not  been  for  her  faithful  German  citizens.  There  was  one  man 
in  St.  Louis  who  turned  out  to  be  a  host  in  himself.  This  was  Cap¬ 
tain  Nathaniel  Lyon,  who  had  fought  in  the  battle  of  Cerro  Gordo 
and  Churubusco,  and  been  wounded  at  the  gates  of  the  Mexican 
capital.  He  was  a  slender,  red-haired  man,  full  of  courage,  and 
ready  for  all  emergencies.  He  held  the  arsenal  at  St.  Louis,  forti¬ 
fied  the  city,  and  by  J une  1st  he  had  an  army  organized  to  meet 
Price.  He  had  a  sharp  little  skirmish  at  Booneville,  where  the 
rebels  had  congregated,  and  drove  them  out  of  that  town.  In  the 
opening  of  this  rebellion  he  was  one  of  the  most  valuable  officers  in 
our  army. 

As  soon  as  the  conflict  began  in  Missouri,  Price  marched  to  the 
southwest  corner  of  his  State,  and  meeting  the  rebel  general  Mc¬ 
Culloch  there,  with  an  army  from  Arkansas,  he  joined  his  forces  to 
McCulloch’s  and  took  command  under  him.  This  was  probably 
what  he  meant  by  “keeping  neutral.”  Then  they  marched  north 
together  to  find  Lyon,  who  by  this  time  had  General  Sigel  and 
his  Germans  with  him. 

Lyon  was  encamped  at  Springfield  the  last  of  July,  when  Mc¬ 
Culloch  advanced  from  the  south.  They  first  met  each  other  at 
“  Dug  Springs,”  twenty  miles  from  Springfield,  but  this  engagement 
decided  nothing.  A  few  days  after  this,  on  the  10th  of  August,  Mc¬ 
Culloch  was  encamped  on  the  banks  of  Wilson’s  Creek,  nine  miles 


Hauling  Cannon. 


from  Lyon’s  camp  at  Springfield.  McCulloch  had  much  the  largest 
army.  But  it  was  the  raggedest,  most  starveling  army  that  ever 
went  out  to  fight.  They  had  lived  principally  on  green  corn  on 

their  march.  Hungry,  dirty,  and  ragged,  their  misery  deserved  a 
30 


464 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


better  cause.  Lyon,  although  in  much  smaller  force,  determined  to 
go  out  and  attack  them.  He  knew  Springfield  was  difficult  to  de¬ 
fend,  and  likely  to  yield  to  larger  numbers  if  he  allowed  McCulloch 
to  come  and  attack  him.  He  set  out,  therefore,  accompanied  by 
Sigel  to  give  battle.  They  marched  very  silently  to  surprise  the 
enemy,  muffling  the  wheels  of  the  cannon  that  their  rolling  might 
not  be  heard.  Sigel  attacked  on  one  side,  Lyon  on  the  other. 
Although  his  force  was  greatly  inferior,  Sigel  was  doing  well,  and 
had  taken  some  prisoners,  when  he  saw  a  column  approaching,  bear¬ 
ing  the  American  flag.  He  supposed  it  to  be  part  of  Lyon’s  army, 
till,  with  the  wild  “  rebel  yell,”  with  which  the  Missourians  rushed 
to  battle,  they  fell  on  him  and  defeated  him  with  great  loss. 

On  his  side  Lyon  was  fighting  gallantly.  Early  in  the  day  he 
had  been  twice  wounded,  in  the  head  and  in  the  leg.  But  he 
seemed  unconscious  of  wounds  or  danger.  Riding  from  one  part  of 
the  field  to  another,  the  blood  from  his  wounded  head  trickling 
down  his  face,  his  whole  nervous  frame  alive  with  fiery  ardor,  he 
seemed  to  pervade  the  whole  battle.  But  after  Sigel’s  defeat,  the 
day  looked  black.  Lyon  said  sadly  to  an  officer,  “  I  fear  the  day 
is  lost.”  At  this  moment  a  regiment,  whose  leader  had  fallen, 
cried  out  for  some  one  to  lead  them.  Lyon  rose  in  his  saddle  and 
waved  his  sword.  “  Come  on,  my  brave  boys,”  he  cried,  “  I  will 
lead  you.  Forward  !  ”  On  the  instant  a  ball  pierced  his  heart ;  he 
reeled  in  his  saddle  and  fell  lifeless.  For  a  moment  there  was  a 
dead  silence ;  then  with  a  great  cry  the  Kansas  regiment  that  Lyon 
was  about  to  lead,  broke  upon  the  enemy.  For  half  an  hour  the 
fight  was  terrible ;  then  the  Unionists  retreated  to  Springfield,  and 
the  rebels  remained  holding  the  field.  The  loss  of  that  day  was  a 
great  one  in  the  death  of  Lyon.  No  more  prompt  and  loyal  man 
had  risen  to  notice  since  the  war.  There  was  another  day  of  mourn¬ 
ing  in  the  North  when  his  death  was  known. 

John  C.  Fremont  had  been  appointed  at  the  beginning  of  the 
war,  the  commander  of  the  West.  He  was  in  Europe,  but  hurried 
home  at  the  first  summons  and  went  to  St.  Louis.  He  arrived 
there  late  in  July,  and  began  to  take  the  most  energetic  measures. 
He  sent  down  immediately  to  guard  the  town  of  Cairo,  on  the  river, 
which  he  knew  would  be  a  most,  important  place  if  seized  by  rebels. 
The  work  before  Fremont  was  immense.  He  could  with  difficulty 
get  men  or  money  from  the  government.  Almost  the  first  things 
that  happened  after  he  arrived  was  the  defeat  at  Wilson’s  Creek, 


THE  GREAT  BORDER  STATE. 


465 


and  Lyon’s  death.  He  worked  bravely,  however,  and  very  soon 
published  a  proclamation,  in  which  he  declared  the  slaves  of  all  the 
rebels  in  arms  against  the  government,  free  men  and  women.  This 
made  great  excitement.  As  yet,  the  North  was  not  at  all  prepared  to 
free  the  slaves.  They  still  kept  declaring  they  were  not  going  to 
harm  or  overturn  any  of  the  Southern  institutions,  and  they  seem 
to  have  believed,  if  they  were  very  careful  not  to  touch  slavery, 
the  rebellion  would  soon  be  over.  So  Fremont’s  proclamation  was 
thought  very  daring,  and  the  government  asked  him  to  retract.  He 
said  he  could  not  in  good  conscience  take  back  an  act  which  he  be¬ 
lieved  right,  unless  he  was  openly  directed  to  do  so  by  the  president. 
Mr.  Lincoln  accordingly  ordered  the  part  of  the  proclamation  relating 
to  slaves  to  be  repealed,  to  the  great  disappointment  of  all  those 
who  believed  that  slavery  was  the  root  of  the  war,  and  that  only 
by  cutting  at  the  root  could  the  tree  be  killed. 

Encompassed  by  so  many  anxieties,  General  Fremont  did  not 
lead  an  easy  life  in  Missouri.  The  town  of  Lexington,  an  impor¬ 
tant  town  on  the  Missouri  River,  had  just  been  taken  by  rebels. 
Colonel  Mulligan,  with  less  than  3,000  men,  had  held  the  place 
three  days  against  overwhelming  numbers,  and  finally  was  forced  to 
yield.  Fremont  was  loudly  blamed  that  he  had  not  sent  men  to 
Mulligan,  but  with  such  numbers  of  points  to  guard,  and  such  want 
of  men  to  fill  all  the  points,  I  hardly  see  how  he  could  have  done 
better.  It  is  so  much  easier  for  other  people  to  see  mistakes  after 
some  one  else  has  made  them. 

Fremont  resolved  to  go  himself  into  the  field  with  his  army,  to 
silence  at  once  all  clamors.  But  he  was  hardly  on  the  march,  before 
an  order  came  to  remove  him  from  his  generalship  in  the  West. 
His  army  sorrowfully  came  back  to  St.  Louis,  and  very  sadly  bade 
him  farewell. 

Among  Fremont’s  troops  were  a  company  of  one  hundred  and 
fifty  young  men,  mounted  on  superb  bay  horses.  The  greater  part 
of  them  were  patriots  from  Kentucky,  and  their  leader  was  a  brave 
Hungarian,  Major  Charles  Zagonyi.  This  company  was  known  as 
“Fremont’s  body-guard.” 

On  his  brief  march  before  his  recall,  Fremont  had  sent  this  guard 
in  advance  to  mark  the  position  of  the  rebel  forces.  Soon  after 
starting,  Zagonyi  was  joined  by  a  battalion  called  “  Prairie  scouts,” 
increasing  his  force  to  three  hundred  men.  Going  merrily  on 
towards  Springfield,  within  two  hours’  march  of  the  town,  they  were 


466 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


met  by  a  Union  farmer  who  told  them  the  enemy,  two  thousand  in 
number,  were  in  Springfield.  Zagonyi  turned  to  his  little  band  of 
three  hundred :  “  Comrades,  the  enemy  is  before  us,  two  thousand 
strong.  If  any  man  would  turn  back,  do  it  now/’  Not  a  man 
stirred.  The  horses,  perfectly  trained,  stood  like  horses  of  stone. 
“  Then  follow  me,”  shouted  the  brave  Hungarian,  “  and  do  as  I  do.” 
With  this  the  troops  dashed  on.  Over  a  muddy  brook  where  the 
horses’  hoofs  stuck  in  clinging  mud  ;  stopping  to  tear  down  a  high 
board  fence  in  sight  of  the  enemy’s  sharp-shooters  ;  down  through  a 
lane  bordered  with  woods  from  which  murderous  rifles  picked  them 
off  at  every  shot' ;  through  all  these  obstacles  the  guard  dashed  on, 
crying  “Union  and  Fremont,”  as  they  rode.  It  was  like  running 
the  gauntlet  of  death.  Seventy  bodies  were  left  dead  or  wounded 
in  the  lane. 

When  they  emerged  they  saw  the  enemy  —  four  hundred  horse, 
twelve  hundred  foot  —  posted  on  a  hill  in  front  of  the  town.  Still 
sounding  their  battle-cry,  the  guard  spurred  onward.  One  band 
of  thirty  burst  with  such  impetuous  fury  on  the  cavalry’s  ranks  that 
they  scattered  them  in  that  one  charge.  The  rest,  riding  with  head¬ 
long  speed  among  the  infantry,  spread  wild  confusion  in  their  ranks. 
Right  and  left  fled  the  rebels,  the  guard  at  their  heels.  Into  neigh¬ 
boring  corn  fields,  trampling  down  the  tasseled  grain  ;  into  the 
woods,  at  whose  border  the  pursuers  reigned  up  their  steeds  ;  back 
to  the  village,  whose  streets  swarmed  with  men  fighting  hand  to 
hand  ;  this  way  and  that,  fled  the  rebel  forces,  pell-mell,  till  the 
field  was  clear,  and  Zagonyi  and  his  guard  held  Springfield.  But 
the  foe  might  return  in  larger  force,  and  Zagonyi  knew  himself  too 
weak  to  hold  the  field.  He  therefore  left  the  town  in  the  night  and 
fell  back  towards  Fremont.  It  was  the  one  brilliant  exploit  of  the 
guard.  On  Fremont’s  recall  they  were  disbanded,  and  the  charge 
at  Springfield  was  their  only  opportunity  to  win  the  glory  they 
thirsted  for. 

One  of  the  best  things  done  by  Fremont  in  his  very  brief  admin¬ 
istration  of  affairs  in  St.  Louis  was  the  guarding  of  Cairo.  Cairo  is 
a  very  uninviting  looking  town  on  the  Mississippi,  just  where  the 
Ohio  River  comes  pouring  in.  But  muddy,  and  dirty,  and  low- 
lying  as  it  is,  it  would  have  been  great  gain  to  the  rebels  if  they 
had  taken  it.  In  the  fall  of  1861,  an  officer  named  Ulysses  S.  Grant, 
newly  made  a  major-general  of  our  armies,  was  stationed  at  Cairo. 
Hearing  that  the  rebel  forces  were  marching  up  into  Kentucky,  he 


THE  GREAT  BORDER  STATE. 


467 


reached  out  an  arm  of  strength  and  took  Paducah,  a  town  on  the 
Ohio,  just  on  its  bend  to  the  Mississippi.  The  Kentucky  governor, 
who  bore  the  very  extraordinary  name  of  Beriah  Magoffin,  was  all 
the  time  loudly  proclaiming  the  neutrality  of  Kentucky.  This  neu¬ 
trality  on  the  part  of  Beriah,  consisted  principally,  in  ordering  Union 
troops  from  off  the  “  polluted  soil  of  Kentucky,”  and  in  blandly 
ignoring  the  entrance  of  the  rebel  troops  inside  her  borders.  But . 
the  people  of  Kentucky  were  largely  loyal,  and  many  regiments 
from  her  midst  were  already  in  the  field  to  fight  for  the  nation. 
Leonidas  Polk,  a  rebel  general  from  Louisiana,  a  fighting  Bishop 
of  the  Episcopal  Church,  was  marching  up  to  take  Columbus,  a  town 
south  of  Cairo  on  the  river.  With  him  was  General  Pillow,  who 
had  seen  good  service  in  Mexico,  and  had  deserted  the  flag  under 
which  he  then  fought,  for  the  new  flag  of  Jefferson  Davis  and  his 
fellow  conspirators.  These  were  in  the  west,  while  in  the  east  of 
Kentucky,  in  her  mountain-region,  Felix  Zollicoffer  had  marched 
the  rebel  troops  from  Tennessee,  to  keep  those  mountain  Unionists 
under.  But  the  Unionists  were  ready  for  him,  and  in  the  very  first 
skirmish  drove  his  army  back  from  their  encampment. 

Up  at  Louisville,  Robert  Anderson  of  Fort  Sumter  fame  guarded 
the  river  borders.  He  was  ill,  and  almost  unfit  for  service,  but  a 
remarkable  aid  of  his,  William  T.  Sherman,  was  ready  at  any  time 
to  step  into  the  command.  Already  he  had  baffled  an  attempt  of  the 
rebel  General  Buckner  to  surprise  Louisville,  and  he  was  at  work 
organizing  a  great  army  which  would  one  day  be  known  as  the 
“  Army  of  the  Cumberland.”  You  have  now  in  your  mind’s  eye,  I 
hope,  the  position  of  Unionists  and  rebels  in  Kentucky.  Let  us 
return  for  a  time  to  East  Virginia,  and  see  what  work  was  being 
done  there. 

The  rebels  still  held  their  camps  almost  in  full  sight  of  the  na¬ 
tional  capital.  From  some  parts  of  the  city  one  could  see  the  wav¬ 
ing  of  Confederate  flags.  Since  Bull  Run  the  rebels  had  been  jubi¬ 
lant.  They  believed  for  a  time  that  the  whole  war  was  decided  in 
that  one  fight.  The  North,  by  that  defeat,  was  only  incited  to 
new  efforts.  The  first  75,000  men,  raised  for  three  months,  had 
gone  home,  and  now  troops  enlisted  for  three  years,  or  “  for  the 
war,”  poured  into  Washington.  The  tramp!  tramp!  tramp!  of 
their  steady  march  sounded  from  Oregon  to  Maine,  and  southward 
through  Maryland  to  the  capital. 

General  Scott  had  grown  old  and  infirm.  The  country  grumbled 


468  STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 

at  him,  and  called  for  a  young  commander.  In  answer  to  this  call 

General  George  B.  McClellan, 
who  had  managed  affairs  in 
West  Virginia,  and  managed 
them  well,  was  called  to  be 
general-in-chief  of  the  armies, 
and  to  the  command  of  the 
“  Army  of  the  Potomac.”  In 
September  that  army  held  a 
grand  review  of  70,000  men. 
By  November  it  had  swelled 
to  200,000  men,  the  largest 
army  that  had  ever  encamped 
on  American  soil.  General 
McClellan,  who  understood 
military  matters  perfectly,  had  drilled  it  and  disciplined  it  so 
thoroughly  that  the  men  moved  in  the  field  like  veteran  soldiers. 
The  only  fault  anybody  found  with  the  army  and  its  general  was 
that  during  the  long  fall  and  winter  of  1861  they  did  not  march  on 
that  enemy  who  all  the  time  faced  them,  flaunting  their  flag  in  the 
eyes  of  the  nation.  During  all  this  time  there  was  only  one  engage¬ 
ment  deserving  the  name  of  a  battle.  This  took  place  on  a  high 
bluff  of  the  Potomac,  northwest  of  Washington,  known  as  “  Ball’s 
Bluff,”  where  the  national  troops  were  defeated  and  terribly  slaugh¬ 
tered  ;  where  Colonel  Baker,  a  promising  soldier  of  Oregon,  lost  his 
life  on  the  field.  The  battle  of  Ball’s  Bluff  was  fought  the  21st  of 
October.  Two  months  after,  on  the  20th  December,  there  was  a 
tussle  with  the  enemy  at  Drainsville,  in  which  the  Unionists  had 
the  advantage.  But  for  the  most  part  these  two  armies  remained 
idle,  facing  each  other  all  these  long  months.  And  the  North, 
who  was  waiting  eagerly  to  see  the  great  masses  of  men  it  had 
furnished  set  to  work,  read  day  after  day,  “  All  quiet  along  the 
Potomac,”  in  all  the  newspapers,  and  on  all  the  bulletin  boards,  till 
at  last  the  phrase  excited  indignation  and  hot  complaint. 


AFFAIRS  ON  THE  SEA-COAST. 


469 


CHAPTER  XXXVII. 

/ 

AFFAIRS  ON  THE  SEA-COAST. 

The  Blockade.  —  Blockade  Runners.  —  The  Sea  Islands.  —  A  Steamboat  Waltz.  —  The  Trent. 

—  Seizure  of  Prisoners  on  an  English  Ship. — Feeling  of  England.  —  Danger  of  War 

averted. 

So  far  I  have  told  you  nothing  about  the  plans  of  the  navy  and 
its  war-ships.  But  I  am  sure  that  you  do  not  believe  our  fleets  are 
to  lie  inactive,  or  that  the  nation  has  forgotten  what  an  aid  in  time 
of  war  had  been  the  services  of  such  men  as  Perry,  Decatur,  and 
Macdonough.  When  the  rebellion  began,  we  had  less  than  one 
hundred  ships  ready.  All  summer  and  fall  at  the  docks  in  Maine, 
Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island,  and  New  York,  the  hammer  of  the 
ship-builder  was  constantly  heard.  In  less  than  a  year,  over  three 
hundred  ships  could  have  been  mustered  for  our  navy.  Early  in 
the  war  President  Lincoln  had  ordered  the  ports  of  the  rebellious 
sea-coast  “  blockaded.”  This  blockade  was  to  stop  all  vessels  com¬ 
ing  from  foreign  ports  who  were  carrying  in  any  goods  to  sell  to 
the  rebels,  to  help  them  in  keeping  up  the  war ;  and  also  to  pre¬ 
vent  any  of  their  ships  from  going  out  to  sell  their  cotton  in  foreign 
ports.  Still  many  vessels  did  escape  the  vigilant  eyes  of  the 
captains  who  were  watching  these  ports,  and  many  ships  known 
as  “  blockade  runners  ”  did  a  good  business  between  England  and 
the  coasts  of  Georgia  and  the  Carolinas. 

Early  in  August,  1861,  General  Butler  gave  up  his  command  in 
Fortress  Monroe  to  the  veteran  General  Wool,  who  came  from  New 
York  to  take  command  there.  General  Butler  was  given  in  charge 
of  a  fleet,  and  sent  to  Hatteras  Inlet  on  the  coast  of  North  Carolina. 
All  old  sailors  know  Hatteras,  for  it  is  almost  always  sure  to  blow 
such  a  gale  off  that  point  that  one  would  think  the  four  winds 
had  gone  mad  there  and  blew  all  ways  at  once.  Hatteras  Inlet  is 
the  narrow  entrance  to  Pamlico  Sound,  between  those  long  narrow 
strips  of  islands  that  stretch  all  around  our  eastern  and  southern 
coast  to  Florida  and  Mississippi.  General  Butler  sailed  to  Hatteras 
Inlet,  took  the  forts  on  either  side  of  it,  and  leaving  a  garrison  there, 
went  back  to  Washington  for  more  troops,  to  get  a  secure  foothold 
in  North  Carolina. 

In  October  another  expedition  was  sent,  much  larger  than  Butler’s. 
It  was  a  splendid  fleet  under  Admiral  Dupont,  with  an  army  on 


470 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


board  commanded  by  General  T.  W.  Sherman.  They  were  bound 
for  the  “Sea  Islands,”  a  swarming  archipelago  on  the  southern  coast 
of  South  Carolina.  On  these  islands,  Hilton  Head,  Philip,  St. 
Helena,  Port  Royal,  and  many  others,  grow  the  finest  cotton  in  the 
world,  called  the  “  sea-island  cotton.”  In  the  old  town  of  Beaufort 
on  Port  Royal  Island,  were  the  mansions  of  some  of  the  wealthiest 
of  all  the  slave-holders.  Thither  went  the  army  of  gun-boats  to 
attack  that  State  which  had  begun  the  rebellion  against  the  govern¬ 
ment.  The  flag-ship  of  Dupont  was  called  the  Wabash.  Behind 
her  were  forty-eight  gun-boats  and  steamers,  and  twenty-six  sailing 
vessels.  Though  they  were  scattered  at  first  by  one  of  those  bluster¬ 
ing  gales  that  blow  off  Hatteras,  they  reunited  in  front  of  Hilton 
Head,  and  prepared  for  their  attack.  There  were  two  forts,  Fort 
Walker  and  Fort  Beauregard,  flanking  the  passage  between  Hilton 
Head  and  Philip's  Island  into  the  heart  of  the  archipelago.  Dupont 
formed  his  fleet  into  a  huge  round  O,  the  Wabash  leading  the  circle, 
and  began  to  steam  round  and  round  between  the  two  forts,  each 
vessel  pouring  into  them  a  hot  fire  as  it  passed  slowly  by.  Round 
and  round,  to  the  waltz-music  of  the  cannon,  went  the  ships,  till  the 
poor  forts  gave  way,  and  our  ships  and  men  held  the  richest  lands  of 
the  South  in  their  grasp.  The  land-holders  made  a  swift  retreat  when 
they  heard  the  news,  burning  as  they  went,  their  stored  cotton,  now 
almost  worth  its  weight  in  gold.  There  was  one  class  of  inhabitants 
who  did  not  run,  however.  These  were  the  negroes,  laborers  on 
these  plantations.  When  our  ships  came  near  they  flocked  eagerly 
to  their  sides,  sometimes  with  all  their  earthly  goods  tied  up  in  little 
bundles,  begging  to  be  taken  away  to  freedom.  This  was  the  first 
genuine  success  of  the  government.  The  hold  this  expedition  gained 
in  the  coast  of  South  Carolina  and  Georgia,  was  of  great  value. 
Soon  after,  busy  “  Yankees  ”  were  experimenting  in  cotton  raising 
on  the  Sea  Islands,  and  schools  established  for  the  teaching  of  the 
negroes  were  seen  on  the  spot  where  slavery  had  flourished  best. 

In  November,  1861,  an  exciting  event  took  place  that  at  one  time 
seemed  likely  to  provoke  a  war  with  England.  James  Mason  and 
John  Slidell,  two  agents  of  the  rebel  party,  ran  the  blockade  at 
Charleston,  reached  Havana  safely,  and  there  took  passage  on  the 
English  ship  Trent ,  bound  for  England.  They  bore  with  them 
papers  from  Jefferson  Davis,  making  Mr.  Mason  an  ambassador  to 
England,  and  Mr.  Slidell  to  France,  to  urge  those  countries  to  recog¬ 
nize  the  seceded  States  as  an  independent  nation. 


AFFAIRS  ON  THE  SEA-COAST. 


471 


Captain  Wilkes,  the  commander  of  the  American  ship  San  Ja¬ 
cinto ,  had  heard  of  the  departure  of  these  two  men,  and  resolved  to 
take  them  off  the  English  ship  as  traitors  to  the  government,  en¬ 
gaged  in  treasonable  practices  against  the  United  States.  He  has¬ 
tened  therefore  to  come  up  with  the  English  vessel,  and  reached  her 
just  before  she  put  in  at  the  island  of  St.  Thomas.  There  he 
boarded  the  ship,  seized  Mason  and  Slidell,  and  bore  them  to  New 
York  as  his  prisoners. 

There  was  great  rejoicing  all  over  the  United  States,  and  Captain 
Wilkes  was  publicly  thanked.  But  in  thus  taking  these  men  from 
a  foreign  vessel,  Captain  Wilkes  had  violated  a  principle  upon 
which  this  country  had  previously  acted.  The  United  States  had 
always  denied  the  right  of  a  foreign  vessel  to  search  one  of  its  own 
ships,  and  take  from  it  any  one  who  was  a  passenger  thereon.  Eng¬ 
land,  on  the  contrary,  had  frequently  transgressed  this  rule. ,  You 
remember  how  during  the  Revolution  she  had  taken  Henry  Laurens 
off  a  Dutch  ship,  and  imprisoned  him  in  the  Tower,  and  how  prior 
to  the  War  of  1812  she  had  seized  so  many  seamen  from  American 
vessels,  claiming  them  as  her  subjects. 

In  the  seizure  of  Mason  and  Slidell,  therefore,  Captain  Wilkes 
had  really  transgressed  the  usual  policy  of  the  United  States.  The 
only  excuse  for  the  act  was,  that  the  country  was  so  excited  by  the 
terrible  struggle  for  its  existence,  that  it  was  for  the  time  blinded 
to  what  was  absolutely  just  and  right.  But  when  England  de¬ 
manded  these  two  men  who  had  been  thus  taken  from  off  the  planks 
of  her  vessel,  and  declared  it  a  violation  of  all  national  courtesy  to 
enter  her  ships  and  take  men  by  violence,  the  country  stopped  to 
reason  about  it,  and  the  more  wise  and  thoughtful  people  at  once 
said,  “  England  is  right.  She  merely  takes  the  ground  in  this 
matter  which  the  United  States  has  always  taken,  and  Mason  and 
Slidell  must  be  given  up  to  her  protection.”  And  although  many 
people  felt  annoyed  and  humiliated  at  the  mistake  that  had  been 
made,  it  was  generally  felt  that  a  wrong  was  better  made  right  at 
once,  than  left  unredressed,  and  that  to  quarrel  with  England  in  an 
unjust  cause,  would  be  very  foolish  indeed.  So  Mason  and  Slidell 
were  allowed  to  go  to  England  and  France,  where  they  had  no  suc¬ 
cess  as  ambassadors,  and  the  rebels  who  had  hoped  there  would  be  a 
war,  in  which  England  would  have  been  their  ally,  were  very  much 
disappointed  at  the  way  the  whole  affair  had  turned  out. 


472 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII. 

TAKING  OF  DONELSON. 

Gibraltar  of  the  West. — U.  S.  Grant  in  Cairo. — Patience  and  Perseverance.  —  Commodore 
Foote  batters  Fort  Henry.  —  The  Muddy  Road  to  Donelson.  —  The  Rebel  Ruse.  —  Grant 
detects  the  Design.  —  Fall  of  Donelson. — Unconditional  Surrender.  — Halleck  in  Missouri. 
—  A  Renegade  Poet.  —  Pea  Ridge.  —  Guerrillas.  —  Close  of  the  Year  1862. 

Will  you  come  with  nle  now  to  the  theatre  of  war  in  Ken¬ 
tucky  and  Tennessee,  where  great  events  are  to  take  place  in  the 

year  1862.  We  left  Ulysses 
S.  Grant  at  Cairo,  holding  fast 
to  that  valuable  point  on  the 
Mississippi.  The  rebels  still 
held  Columbus,  Kentucky,  a 
point  on  the  river  below  Cairo. 
They  called  it  boastingly  the 
“  Gibraltar  of  the  West,”  and 
declared  no  force  could  be  mus¬ 
tered  that  could  take  it.  Co¬ 
lumbus  was  the  western  end  of 
the  rebel  lines  in  Kentucky. 
The  eastern  end  was  at  Bowl¬ 
ing  Green,  on  the  railroad  be¬ 
tween  Louisville  and  Nashville.  Bowling  Green  was  called  the 
“  Manassas  of  the  West”  in  proud  recollection  of  the  rebel  success 
in  holding  Manassas  in  Virginia.  They  felt  altogether  sure  of 
holding  Kentucky  and  Tennessee  against  Union  assaults,  so  long  as 
they  held  Columbus  and  Bowling  Green,  and  you  can  see  by  their 
pet  names,  “  Gibraltar  ”  and  “  Manassas,”  what  an  opinion  they 
had  of  their  strength.  But  the  rebel  lines  had  a  middle  as  well  as 
two  ends.  Two  great  rivers,  the  Tennessee  and  Cumberland,  come 
rushing  up  through  the  States  of  Tennessee  and  Kentucky  to  pour 
themselves  into  the  Ohio  River  just  a  little  way  from  where  the 
Ohio  pours  itself  into  the  Mississippi.  These  two  rivers  flow  side 
by  side,  in  friendly  companionship,  for  many  miles  before  they  join 
the  Ohio.  At  one  point  where  they  are  about  twelve  miles  distant, 
the  rebels  had  erected  two  forts,  Fort  Henry  on  the  Tennessee,  and 
Fort  Donelson  on  the  Cumberland.  These  two  forts,  lying  about 
midway  between  Columbus  and  Bowling  Green,  formed  the  rebel 


Ulysses  S.  Grant. 


TAKING  OF  DONELSON. 


473 


centre.  To  take  them  would  be  like  opening  a  side  door  to  Colum¬ 
bus  and  Bowling  Green.  It  would  also  be  like  opening  a  front  door 
to  another  important  point, — the  town  of  Nashville,  Tennessee,  on 
the  Cumberland  River,  which  was  guarded  by  these  forts.  Besides, 
if  the  forts  were  taken,  the  navigation  of  the  rivers  would  be  free 
to  Union  steamboats.  Up  the  Tennessee,  vessels  could  sail  into  the 
State  of  Alabama,  which  so  far,  since  the  war,  had  been  locked  up 
and  double-bolted  against  the  armies  of  the  nation. 

General  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  turning  over  these  matters  in  his  mind 
up  in  Cairo,  fixed  on  Forts  Henry  and  Donelson  as  the  points  on 
which  to  strike  the  blow  that  would  cut  the  snake  of  rebellion  in 
Kentucky  right  in  two  in  the  middle,  and  make  the  head  at  Co¬ 
lumbus,  and  the  tail  at  Bowling  Green,  of  not  the  slightest  possible 
use  to  the  reptile. 

You  have  no  idea  what  hard  work  it  is  for  a  clever  general  to 
carry  out  his  ideas.  It  is  not  only  the  work  of  getting  a  large 
army  ready  to  move,  seeing  that  the  men  have  comfortable  clothing, 
good  shoes  to  march  in,  plenty  of  provisions  carefully  guarded, 
horses  and  wagons  to  carry  the  goods  ;  but,  if  a  subordinate  general 
has  a  good  idea,  he  has  to  get  leave  to  act  upon  it,  from  the  com¬ 
manding  general  of  his  department.  Often  and  often  when  he  sees 
a  good  chance,  and  telegraphs  to  his  superior,  “  May  I  hit  the  enemy 
here  ?  ”  or,  “  May  I  strike  a  blow  in  this  direction  ?  ”  the  command¬ 
ing  general  delays  answering,  or  waits  to  examine  the  plans  of  the 
subordinate,  till  the  golden  moment  goes,  and  it  is  too  late  to  carry 
out  the  design. 

So  Grant  had  to  wait  and  wait  to  get  leave  from  Halleck,  com¬ 
mander  in  Missouri,  to  make  the  attempt  on  the  two  forts.  For¬ 
tunately  this  was  a  man  who  knew  how  to  wait  patiently  when 
there  was  need  of  it.  “  Patience  and  Perseverance  ”  would  be 
an  excellent  motto  for  U.  S.  Grant’s  war-banner.  At  length,  on  the 
last  day  of  January,  1862,  came  the  long  wished  for  permission  to 
march  on  the  forts.  Commodore  Foote,  with  a  fleet  of  iron-covered 
gun-boats,  was  sent  down  the  Tennessee  River  in  advance.  Behind 
him,  in  steam  “transports,”  followed  Grant  and  his  army.  Fort 
Henry  was  known  to  be  the  weakest  of  the  two  strongholds,  and 
they  were  to  begin  operations  there. 

It  was  the  6th  of  February  on  which  the  attack  was  to  be  made. 
Commodore  Foote  was  to  draw  up  his  gun-boats  in  front  of  the  fort, 
and  pepper  away  at  it  with  all  his  guns.  In  the  mean  time,  Grant, 


474 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


who  had  landed  his  army  four  miles  below  the  fort,  was  to  send 
General  McClernand  and  the  troops  round  to  a  back  road  running 
from  Fort  Henry  to  Donelson,  to  cut  off  any  retreat  that  might  be 
attempted  from  Fort  Henry.  He  knew  that  Donelson  was  the  real 
stronghold,  and  felt  sure  they  would  send  their  men  and  guns  over 
to  Donelson,  if  Foote  succeeded  in  his  attack. 

Commodore  Foote,  who  was  a  sincere,  pious  soul,  and  no  brag¬ 
gart,  said  he  would  have  the  white  flag  floating  over  Fort  Henry  in 
one  hour  from  the  time  his  boats  began  upon  her.  He  was  not  far 
out  of  time.  It  was  just  an  hour  and  five  minutes  after  his  fire 
began,  that  the  fort  surrendered.  In  the  mean  time  McClernand’s 
army  were  hurrying  round  to  the  road  behind  Fort  Henry.  Un¬ 
luckily  it  was  terribly  muddy,  and  they  were  behind  time.  All  the 


Foote’s  Flotilla. 


rebel  guns  of  any  value  and  most  of  the  men  had  got  across  before 
McClernand  reached  the  road.  Muddy  roads  have  been  the  cause 
of  many  a  loss  on  one  side  and  many  a  gain  on  the  other.  When 
Henry  surrendered  there  was  only  a  handful  of  men  in  the  fort, 
under  a  brave  commander,  General  Tilghman,  who  held  out  stoutly 
till  he  had  covered  the  retreat  to  Donelson.  This  was  the  6th  of 
February.  Six  days  later  Grant  set  out  for  Donelson  along  the  road 
from  Henry.  As  he  neared  the  Cumberland  River  he  kept  spread¬ 
ing  his  lines  till  his  army  lay  in  a  great  half  circle  running  outside 
of  Donelson,  with  its  two  ends  on  the  river. 

Donelson  was  much  larger  and  stronger  than  Henry.  General 
Pillow  had  been  commanding  there,  with  General  Buckner,  who  had 
been  a  prominent  rebel  in  Kentucky  ever  since  the  war  began.  On 
the  day  of  Grant’s  march  upon  it,  John  B.  Floyd  had  arrived  there 


TAKING  OF  DONELSON. 


475 


with  an  army  and  taken  chief  command.  So  there  were  three 
prominent  generals  and  15,000  men  in  the  fort.  As  before,  Com¬ 
modore  Foote  began  the  attack.  But  this  time  he  was  not  so  suc¬ 
cessful.  The  rebel  guns  from  the  fort  peppered  him  there  as  badly 
as  he  had  peppered  them  at  Henry.  He  made  a  gallant  fight  all  one 
afternoon,  but  at  length  was  obliged  to  fall  down  the  river  with  his 
boats  injured  and  almost  useless.  It  was  the  evening  of  the  14th 
of  February  when  Foote  retired.  Grant  had  made  up  his  mind 
that  it  would  take  time  to  take  the  place  and  was  going  to  keep  up 
the  siege,  while  he 
sent  for  more  troops 
and  repaired  his  gun¬ 
boats,  when  the  reb¬ 
els  helped  him  to  a 
different  conclusion. 

They  had  a  talk  in 
the  fort  that  very 
evening,  and  Floyd 
concluded  that  they 
could  not  stand  a 
long  siege.  He  accordingly  resolved  to  go  out  next  day  and  give 
battle.  During  the  fight  they  were  to  watch  a  good  opportunity 
for  retreat  and  when  it  came  make  off  in  good  order,  leaving  the 
empty  fort  to  Grant’s  army. 

This  was  acted  on  next  morning.  General  Pillow  came  out,  and 
threw  all  his  forces  on  the  right  end  of  our  lines,  resting  on  the 
river.  General  McClernand  commanded  here  and  held  his  own 
bravely.  But  he  was  very  hard  pressed  and  Pillow  was  feeling 
quite  confident  of  escape  if  not  of  victory. 

Grant  was  down  the  river  talking  with  Foote  when  the  attack 
began.  Up  he  galloped  to  the  scene  of  battle.  When  he  reached 
the  place  there  was  a  lull  in  the  battle,  but  McClernand’s  men,  who 
had  felt  the  heaviest  of  the  attack  were  weakened  and  discouraged. 
Grant  heard  a  soldier  say,  as  he  was  talking  with  McClernand,  — 

“  The  rebels  have  come  out  to  fight  for  several  days.  They  have 
got  their  haversacks  full  of  provisions.” 

Grant  turned  suddenly.  “  Bring  me  a  rebel  haversack,”  he  or¬ 
dered. 

The  haversack  of  a  “  gray-coat  ”  was  brought  to  him.  He  ex¬ 
amined  it  and  found  it  provisioned  for  three  days. 


Grant's  Head-quarters  at  Fort  Donelson. 


476 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


“  This  means  retreat,”  he  said.  “  Men  don’t  provision  like  this 
unless  they  mean  to  run  away.  One  spirited  attack  now,  will  finish 
the  fight.” 

At  once  he  ordered  General  Smith,  who  commanded  the  Union 
forces  on  the  left,  to  begin  the  attack.  General  Lew.  Wallace  in 
the  centre,  and  McClernand,  reinforced  by  some  fresh  troops,  were 
to  be  ready  to  join  when  they  heard  Smith’s  guns.  One  concen¬ 
trated  terrible  push  along  the  whole  rebel  lines,  and  Grant  felt  that 
the  victory  was  his.  It  was  done.  With  overpowering  force  the 
whole  line  made  the  attack.  The  fight  waxed  more  and  more 
deadly.  The  snow-coverecl  earth  was  spread  thick  with  dead  ; 
pools  of  blood  everywhere  stained  its  whiteness.  The  cries  of  the 
wounded  men,  suffering  from  the  bitter  cold,  as  well  as  from  the 
agony  of  their  hurts,  could  be  heard  among  all  the  uproar  of  battle. 
When  darkness  came  mercifully,  to  cut  off  for  a  time  the  carnage, 
the  rebels  had  been  driven  inside  their  lines. 

Grant  and  his  men  were  in  good  spirits. 

“  Two  hours  more  of  good  fighting  to-morrow  will  finish  the  bat¬ 
tle,”  they  said. 

Inside  the  fort  General  Floyd  was  packing  up  to  go  away.  He 
feared  if  he  were  taken  prisoner  the  government  of  the  United 
States  might  remember  the  money  and  muskets  he  had  sent  to  the 
Southern  conspirators  when  he  was  holding  an  office  of  high  trust 
in  Buchanan’s  cabinet.  So,  during  the  night,  he  took  his  army 
and  got  away  by  the  river.  General  Pillow  also  thought  discretion 
was  the  better  part  of  valor,  and  discretion  consisted  in  not  being 
taken  prisoner.  By  daylight  on  the  16th  of  February,  General 
Buckner,  the  real  hero  of  the  defense,  was  left  alone  to  surrender. 
He  sent  out  to  Grant  to  know  what  terms  he  would  accept. 

“No  terms  but  unconditional  surrender  can  be  accepted.  I  pro¬ 
pose  to  move  immediately  upon  your  works,”  answered  the  general, 
who  wrote  this  dispatch  in  his  tent  sitting  on  an  empty  cracker- 
box.  Buckner  made  no  further  remonstrance,  and  at  once  Grant’s 
conquering  army  marched  into  Donelson. 

The  very  day  after  the  capture  of  Donelson,  General  Johnston 
began  a  retreat  with  his  forces  from  Bowling  Green.  Two  weeks 
later  General  Bishop  Leonidas  Polk  took  his  forces  from  Columbus 
and  sent  them  to  an  island  in  the  Mississippi,  known  as  Island  No. 
10.  At  Nashville,  the  frightened  Governor  of  Tennessee  packed 
up  his  papers  and  valuables,  and  fled  to  Memphis.  All  over  the  city 


TAKING  OF  DONELSON. 


477 


of  Nashville  there  was  hurrying  and  scurrying  to  get  out  of 
town,  among  those  who  had  reason  to  dread  the  presence  of  Union 
troops.  On  the  26tli  of  February  part  of  our  army  entered  and 
took  possession  there.  An  expedition  was  sent  at  once  to  Alabama, 
and  soon,  in  the  northern  part  of  that  State,  our  flag  waved  over  a 
part  of  the  nation  to  which  it  had  been  long  a  stranger.  For  the 
first  time  since  the  war  opened,  the  whole  North  felt  it  had  real 
cause  for  joy,  and  every  loyal  heart,  North  and  South,  beat  with 
thankfulness  at  the  news  of  the  taking  of  Donelson. 

After  Fremont  was  recalled  from  Missouri,  General  Halleck  was 
given  command  there.  Fremont  had  made  a  mistake, — so  Mr, 
Lincoln  and  the  government  thought,  —  in  proclaiming  the  negroes 
of  the  rebels  free  men  and  women.  Halleck  did  not  mean  to  err 
on  that  side,  so  he  ordered  that  all  slaves  running  away  to  the 
Union  camps  should  be  at  once  sent  back  to  their  masters.  The 
excuse  for  this  order  was  that  negroes  sometimes  carried  information 
to  the  rebels  which  aided  them  in  planning  an  attack.  This  is  now 
known  to  be  false.  It  is  now  known,  that  from  first  to  last,  from 
one  boundary  to  the  other  of  the  “  Southern  Confederacy,'’  the  slaves 
were  the  devoted  friends  of  the  Union  cause.  It  was  proved  that 
no  ill  treatment  or  distrust  ever  served  to  shake  their  loyalty.  All 
through  the  war  the  “  Yankee  ”  soldier,  wherever  he  found  himself 
in  the  disloyal  States,  was  absolutely  sure  of  the  aid  and  sympathy 
of  the  loyal  negro,  of  all  shades  of  color,  and  all  degrees  of  intelli¬ 
gence. 

General  Sterling  Price,  who  had  been  for  some  time  encamped  in 
Springfield,  suddenly  heard  that  the  Union  General  S.  R.  Curtis 
was  marching  down  upon  him.  He  was  eating  his  breakfast  when 
the  news  came  and  left  at  once  with  his  army,  leaving  his  dishes 
unwashed,  and  his  half-eaten  breakfast  in  camp.  He  repaired  over 
the  Missouri  border  into  Arkansas,  to  join  again  his  old  friend 
McCulloch.  There  the  two  generals  mustered  quite  a  large  army. 
Among  their  troops  were  four  or  five  thousand  Indians,  from  the 
Indian  Territory.  They  were  commanded  by  a  long-haired  poet, 
named  Albert  Pike,  who  had  formerly  written  some  tolerable  verses 
against  the  dissolution  of  the  Union.  This  renegade  poet  was  born 
in  Boston,  Massachusetts,  but  seems  to  have  forgotton  both  his  State 
and  his  country. 

Curtis  came  on  in  pursuit  of  Price.  As  soon  as  his  troops  crossed 
the  boundary  they  set  up  a  flag-staff  and  unfurled  the  flag  with  a 


478 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


great  cheer  as  they  saw  it  flying  over  the  soil  of  another  State. 
Earl  Van  Dorn,  another  famous  rebel,  had  just  taken  supreme  com¬ 
mand  over  Price,  McCulloch,  and  Pike’s  Indian  army.  They  were 
all  in  the  extreme  northwest  corner  of  Arkansas,  when  the  battle- 
hour  drew  near.  Curtis,  who  had  Sigel  with  him,  was  on  a  mount¬ 
ain  swell,  heavily  wooded,  and  cut  up  by  ravines,  known  as  Pea 
Ridge.  Earl  Van  Dorn,  with  a  very  much  larger  force,  was  threat¬ 
ening  him  all  around.  Curtis  saw  that  he  must  fight  in  spite  of 
the  great  disparity  of  numbers.  He  therefore  formed  his  lines  on 
the  7th  of  March,  and  the  two  armies  faced  each  other  in  the  Battle 
of  Pea  Ridge.. 

The  fight  lasted  all  day,  sometimes  turning  in  favor  of  Unionists, 
sometimes  of  rebels.  On  that  day  General  McCulloch  was  killed. 
He  was  a  good  soldier,  and  an  important  loss  to  the  rebel  cause. 
That  night  Curtis  made  all  preparations  for  a  victory  in  the  morn¬ 
ing.  He  felt  so  sure  of  success  that  he  was  terribly  disappointed 
when  he  got  up  next  day  and  ordered  the  advance,  to  find  the  field 
quite  empty  of  foes.  The  rebels  had  run  away  in  the  night. 

For  some  time  after  this,  the  rebels  were  quiet  in  Missouri,  and 
there  was  very  little  except  guerrilla  warfare  going  on  in  that  quar¬ 
ter.  The  “guerrillas”  were  bands  of  armed  men  who  roamed 
about  the  country  making  raids  at  intervals,  in  which  they  carried 
off  all  the  property  they  could,  and  destroyed  what  they  could  not 
carry  away.  They  were  not  part  of  the  regular  army,  but  were 
generally  led  by  a  bold  and  reckless  leader  who  called  them  together 
and  disbanded  them  much  at  his  own  pleasure.  The  trouble  with 
guerrillas  (you  must  not  get  them  mixed  up  with  gorillas ,  though 
they  are  rather  suggestive  of  wild  animals),  was  that  you  never 
knew  where  to  find  them.  They  would  make  a  dash  in  one  place, 
murder  a  number  of  Union  men,  steal  all  the  horses  and  cattle,  tram¬ 
ple  down  the  crops,  and  be  off  before  any  force  could  be  mustered  to 
capture  them.  The  border  States  were  very  much  pestered  by 
guerrillas. 

To  finish  up  events  in  the  western  border,  I  must  tell  you  that 
late  in  the  year  1862,  General  Hindman  commanded  the  rebels  on 
this  line,  with  his  head-quarters  in  Little  Rock,  Arkansas.  Hind¬ 
man  amused  himself  and  his  men  by  burning  villages,  stealing  cattle, 
destroying  crops,  and  killing  Unionists  in  Northern  Arkansas.  Even 
the  Confederates  suffered  from  his  rule  and  clamored  for  his  recall 
from  the  State.  He  met  the  Union  General  Blunt  in  a  sharp  fight 


WORK  ON  THE  OCEAN  IN  1862. 


479 


near  Prairie  Grove,  in  which  both  sides  declared  they  had  beaten. 
As  the  rebels  tore  up  their  blankets  in  the  night,  after  the  fighting 
was  over,  and  wound  them  round  their  cannon  wheels  so  as  to  get 
away  without  being  heard  by  the  Unionists,  I  should  say  they  had 
had  the  worst  of  it.  Be  that  as  it  may,  at  the  end  of  1862  Mis¬ 
souri  was  comparatively  quiet,  and  there  was  very  little  of  interest 
going  on  in  Arkansas,  to  either  the  rebel  or  Union  cause. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX. 

WORK  ON  THE  OCEAN  IN  1862. 

Hampton  Roads. — The  Burnside  Expedition. — A  Formidable  Monster. — How  the  Cumber¬ 
land  went  down.  — A  Cheese  Box  on  a  Raft.  —  Fight  of  the  Monitor1  and  Merrimack. 

Let  us  turn  to  the  sea-coast  once  more  and  see  what  our  gun¬ 
boats  and  iron-clads  are  doing  there.  In  January,  1862,  nearly  one 
hundred  ships,  both  steam  and  sailing  vessels,  were  riding  at  anchor 
in  Hampton  Roads.  Hampton  Roads  is  not  a  highway  on  land  as 
its  name  might  imply.  It  is  an  arm  of  Chesapeake  Bay,  running  up 
into  the  coast  of  Virginia.  These  ships  and  the  troops  on  board 
them,  were  commanded  by  Commodore  Goldsborough  and  General 
Ambrose  Burnside.  These  were  going  down  to  the  coast  of  North 
Carolina,  to  take  possession  of  it  as  Dupont  had  taken  the  islands 
of  South  Carolina. 

They  set  out  on  the  11th  of  January.  Just  as  they  drew  near 
Hatteras  Inlet,  one  of  the  dreadful  gales  blew  off  the  stormy  cape. 
The  splendid  fleet  was  scattered  and  some  of  the  ships  lost.  After 
the  storm  was  over,  seventy  vessels  got  over  the  bay  and  made  their 
way  to  Roanoke  Island.  They  came  to  the  very  spot  where  Sir 
Walter  Raleigh’s  unsuccessful  colony  came  in  1585.  How  differently 
it  looked  in  this  year  of  grace,  1862,  when  the  Burnside  Expedition 
steamed  up  to  capture  it.  Now  it  bristled  with  angry-looking  can¬ 
non,  and  instead  of  the  fragrant  odors  of  the  forest,  the  air  was 
redolent  of  smoke  and  the  smell  of  gunpowder. 

Burnside’s  success  at  Roanoke  was  as  decided  as  Dupont’s  success 
at  Port  Royal.  His  troops  landed  on  the  island,  marched  up 
through  a  narrow  causeway,  defended  on  each  side  by  cannon,  and 
took  the  enemy’s  works  in  gallant  fashion.  After  taking  Roanoke 

they  moved  to  the  main-land  and  captured  Newbern,  the  most  im- 

31 


480 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


portant  town  on  the  North  Carolina  coast.  By  April  the  towns 
at  the  mouths  of  all  the  principal  rivers  were  in  the  power  of  the 
United  States.  The  whole  coast  of  Carolina  was  blockaded  by  our 
ships.  If  Burnside  had  controlled  land  forces  enough  he  might 
have  pressed  still  farther  inland,  but  in  all  this  expedition  he  had 
only  about  15,000  men. 

This  very  month  of  April  General  Quincy  Gilmore,  a  civil 
engineer  as  well  as  a  soldier,  attacked  Fort  Pulaski,  a  strong¬ 
hold  guarding  the  mouth  of  the  Savannah  River.  This  post  was 
taken,  and  another  of  the  best  points  on  the  coast  restored  to  the 
nation. 

In  the  mean  time  a  formidable  monster  had  appeared  in  Hampton 
Roads,  some  time  after  Burnside  left  there.  A  fleet  of  Union  ves¬ 
sels  lying  peacefully  in  the  James  River  not  far  from  Fortress  Mon¬ 
roe,  were  startled  by  the  appearance  of  an  iron-clad  ship  making 
rapidly  towards  them.  It  was  the  steamer  Merrimack ,  once  a  fine 
war  vessel  belonging  to  the  navy.  When  the  rebels  seized  the  navy- 
yard  at  Norfolk  they  had  sunk  this  ship  in  the  harbor.  On  sec¬ 
ond  thought  they  had  raised  the  hulk,  and  found  it  still  firm  and 
seaworthy.  They  had  put  over  the  deck  a  shelving  iron  roof  from 
which  cannon-balls  glanced  over  harmlessly,  and  had  plated  the 
sides  over  with  iron  to  below  the  water-level.  Thus  fitted  up,  with 
a  formidable  pointed  “  beak”  of  oak  and  iron  fastened  to  her  bow, 
the  Merrimack  was  a  monster  frightful  to  the  stoutest  wooden  ship 
that  ever  sailed  the  seas. 

Down  she  came  on  this  Saturday,  frlie  8th  of  March,  right  upon 
the  grand  old  Cumberland ,  who  awaited  her  unflinchingly.  They 
fought  for  two  hours,  the  water  gushing  through  the  holes  which 
the  iron  beak  of  the  enemy  gored  in  the  wooden  sides  of  the  Cum¬ 
berland.  At  the  last,  her  brave  captain,  Morris,  refused  to  surrender, 
and  the  ship  went  down  with  one  hundred  dead  and  wounded  on 
her  decks,  with  her  good  flag  still  flying.  Even  after  the  vessel 
sank,  the  flag  floated  above  the  waves,  a  sign  of  hope  and  cheer  to 
the  others  in  the  fight. 

“  ‘  Strike  your  flag!  ’  the  rebel  cries 
In  his  arrogant  old  plantation  strain. 

‘  Never  !  ’  our  gallant  Morris  cries. 

‘  It  is  better  to  sink  than  to  yield !  ’ 

And  the  whole  air  pealed 
With  the  cheers  of  our  men. 


WORK  ON  THE  OCEAN  IN  1862. 


481 


“  Next  morn,  as  the  sun  rose  over  the  bay, 

Still  floated  our  flag  at  the  main-mast  head. 

Lord,  how  beautiful  was  thy  day  1 
Every  waft  of  the  air 
Was  a  whisper  of  prayer, 

Or  a  dirge  for  the  dead !  ” 

Without  a  pause  the  Merrimack  turned  to  the  Congress ,  who  had 
already  been  attacked  by  some  wooden  companions  of  the  iron 
giant-ship.  In  a  short  time  the  Congress  was  on  fire,  slowly  burn¬ 
ing  down  to  the  powder  stored  in  the  hold.  Then  the  .monster 
went  on  to  attack  the  other  ships  lying  almost  under  the  shadow  of 
Fortress  Monroe.  Luckily  darkness  came  to  check  her  all-devouring 
career,  and  with  the  certainty  of  more  easy  victories  on  the  next  day, 
the  Merrimack  withdrew  till  daylight. 

But  day-break  a  little  changed  the  scene.  Next  morning  the 
Merrimack  beheld  a  plucky  little  enemy  beside  her,  dressed  in  a  suit 
of  clothes  of  the  same  material  as  her  own.  It  was  the  United 


Engagement  of  Merrimack  and  Monitor. 


States  Monitor ,  built  in  New  York  by  John  Ericsson,  and  sent  just 
in  time  to  try  her  hand  at  checking  the  victorious  Merrimack.  She 
looked  like  a  flat  iron  raft,  with  a  round  iron  box  or  turret  in  the 
middle.  The  rebels  called  it  a  “  Yankee  cheese-box  on  a  raft,”  and 
this  was  not  a  bad  name  for  it.  But  the  clieese-box  had  within  its 
iron  sides  two  great  guns  which  turned  round  and  round  on  a  pivot, 
and  could  be  sighted  by  the  men  inside,  with  almost  the  precision  of 
a  rifle.  These  guns  could  send  a  ball  that  weighed  two  hundred 
pounds.  When  the  Merrimack  saw  this  little  craft  steaming  up 
close  by  her,  with  nothing  visible  but  the  turret,  she  felt  like  laugh- 


482 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


ing.  But  when  one  of  those  two  hundred  pound  balls  dented  into 
her  iron  sides  and  shook  her  like  the  crash  of  a  thunder-bolt,  there 
was  no  fun  in  it.  Goliah  did  not  laugh  after  David  struck  him  once 
with  the  stone  from  his  sling.  The  Merrimack  tried  her  shot  on 
the  Monitor ,  but  they  pattered  off  her  iron-proof  sides  like  hail  on  a 
liouse-roof.  She  ran  down  upon  her,  full  force,  and  tried  to  gore  her 
with  her  pointed  beak  as  she  had  gored  the  Cumberland  and  Con¬ 
gress  ;  but  the  little  craft  scarcely  budged  under  the  shock  and  kept 
up  her  steady  fire  from  those  revolving  guns.  At  last,  after  four 
hours  of  such  fighting,  the  Merrimack  retired,  leaving  the  small 
Monitor  in  possession  of  the  watery  field.  Cheers  rose  from  fort 
and  ships  at  the  spectacle  ;  and  from  that  time  there  was  no  more 
fear  of  the  rebel  monster,  in  Hampton  Roads,  while  the  “  Yankee 
cheese-box  ”  guarded  the  entrance  there. 


CHAPTER  XL. 

SHILOH,  ISLAND  NO.  10,  AND  CORINTH. 

The  Log  Meeting-house.  —  The  Surprise.  —  “Drive  the  Yankees  into  the  River.”  —  Beaure¬ 
gard’s  Great  Victory.  — The  Tide  turns  next  Morning.  — Cutting  a  Canal  under  Water.  — 
Taking  of  Island  No.  10. — The  Siege  of  Corinth.  —  Beauregard’s  Last  Strategy.  —  The 
Nation  had  found  its  Leader. 

The  fall  of  Fort  Donelson  drove  the  rebels  straight  down 
through  the  State  of  Tennessee.  Their  commanding  general,  Al¬ 
bert  S.  Johnston,  stopped  his  march  at  Corinth,  a  little  town  in  the 
very  northeast  corner  of  Mississippi,  only  a  few  miles  from  the 
boundary  of  Tennessee.  Here  he  was  joined  by  General  Beaure¬ 
gard,  the  hero  of  Bull  Run,  who  came  to  aid  him.  Bishop  Polk 
also  came  from  Columbus  with  part  of  his  troops,  —  the  rest  he 
had  left  to  fortify  Island  No.  10- — and  General  Bragg,  who  had 
commanded  the  famous  battery  at  Buena  Yista  in  Mexico,  also 
added  an  army  freshly  recruited  in  Mississippi  and  Alabama,  to  the 
gathering  masses.  By  the  1st  of  April  40,000  rebels  were  in  Cor¬ 
inth. 

Grant  was  closely  following  on  Johnston’s  heels.  He  had  halted 
at  a  point  on  the  Tennessee  River  known  as  Pittsburg  Landing, 
about  twenty  miles  north  of  Corinth  ;  and  all  about  this  village, 
which  consisted  of  two  or  three  log  huts  on  the  river  bank,  his  army 


SHILOH,  ISLAND  NO.  10,  AND  CORINTH. 


483 


lay  encamped.  Three  miles  from  the  river  was  a  poor  little  log 
church  known  as  “  Shiloh  Meeting-house,”  and  around  this  church 
was  posted  the  division  of  William  T.  Sherman,  who  had  been  sent 
to  join  Grant  after  the  taking  of  Donelson. 

It  was  just  before  dawn  on  Sunday,  the  6th  of  April.  The 
Union  army  near  Pittsburg  Landing  was  fast  asleep.  Behind 
them  lay  the  broad  Tennessee  River.  To  the  right  and  left,  wind¬ 
ing  about  their  encampment,  were  two  small  rivers  known  as 
“  Snake  ”  and  “  Lick  ”  creeks,  tributaries  of  the  large  Tennessee. 
General  Grant  was  at  Savannah,  ten  miles  distant,  looking  after 


Pittsburg  Landing. 


provisions  to  feed  his  great  army.  There  had  been  some  rumors 
that  the  enemy  at  Corinth  meant  to  attack  at  Pittsburg  Landing, 
but  not  much  attention  was  paid  to  this  report,  and  it  seemed  quite 
certain  that  General  Carlos  Buell,  who  was  on  his  way  with  a  large 
force  to  join  Grant  at  Pittsburg  Landing,  would  come  up  before 
serious  fighting  began.  Therefore  Grant  in  Savannah,  and  the 
Union  troops  in  their  camp  on  the  river,  slept  soundly  and  without 
fear. 

At  that  very  moment  Johnston  and  Beauregard,  with  their  arnq 


484 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


of  40,000,  lay  hid  in  the  encircling  wood  about  the  Union  camp. 
They  had  marched  swiftly  and  secretly  from  Corinth,  through  rain 
and  mud,  and  at  midnight  had  gained  sight  of  the  camp  fires. 
Cold  and  weary  they  lay  on  the  ground,  not  daring  to  light  fires  to 
dry  their  clothes  or  cook  a  comfortable  meal,  lest  the  smoke  or  the 
light  should  reveal  their  presence  to  Union  pickets.  Just  as  the 
gray  dawn  broke  on  Sunday,  —  that  day  which  ought  to  bring 
peace  and  good-will  among  men,  —  the  Union  soldiers  were  roused 
from  sleep  by  the  wild  yells  which  hailed  the  rebel  attack.  In  a 
moment  all  was  hurry  and  confusion  in  Sherman’s  camp,  where  the 
alarm  began.  His  pickets  made  a  feeble  resistance,  then  rushed 


Pickets  on  Duty. 


back  to  give  the  alarm.  It  soon  spread  from  camp  to  camp.  There 
was  dressing  in  hot  haste  ;  no  time  for  breakfast,  or  for  elaborate 
toilets.  By  daylight  the  battle  of  Shiloh  had  fairly  set  in. 

The  battle  broke  first  on  Sherman’s  division  near  the  log  meeting¬ 
house.  He  worked  like  the  hero  he  was,  and  fought  his  ground  inch 
by  inch.  But  first  Bragg,  then  Polk,  and  afterwards  Johnston, 
beat  upon  him  right  and  left.  He  was  obliged  to  fall  back  nearer 
the  river. 

It  was  eight  in  the  morning  when  Grant  galloped  on  from  Savan¬ 
nah  where  he  had  heard  the  firing.  He  sent  post  haste  to  hurry  up 
General  Buell,  who  he  knew  could  not  be  far  away,  and  another  ex- 


SHILOH,  ISLAND  NO.  10,  AND  CORINTH. 


485 


press  was  sent  to  General  Lew.  Wallace,  who  was  at  a  landing  up 
the  river  with  5,000  men.  If  he  could  hold  out  till  reinforcements 
came  up,  Grant  did  not  despair. 

The  enemy  fought  hard  to  drive  the  Unionists  to  the  river. 
There  was  not  a  boat  to  take  them  over.  In  case  worse  came  to 
the  worst,  they  could  only  have  fought  to  the  brink  and  then  they 
must  either  drown  or  surrender.  Beauregard,  riding  up  and  down 
his  ranks,  repeated  again  and  again  this  order,  “  Drive  the  Yankees 
into  the  Tennessee.” 

For  hours  the  battle  raged,  the  Union  troops  all  the  time  pressed 
backwards.  But  the  banks  of  the  river  just  here  were  high  and 
ridgy.  The  Union  troops  had  mounted  guns  on  this  crest,  and  with 
them  held  back  the  rebel  advance.  To  keep  this  ridge  was  their 
only  hope  of  resistance. 

At  three  in  the  afternoon  the  rebel  General  Albert  Sydney  John¬ 
ston,  riding  in  front  of  his  troops,  felt  a  twinge  in  his  leg  where  it 
rifle  ball  had  entered.  “  It  is  nothing  but  a  flesh  wound,”  he  said, 
riding  on.  Ten  minutes  later  he  turned  to  his  aid,  deadly  pale  and 
almost  fainting,  “  I  fear  I  am  mortally  wounded,”  he  said,  brokenly. 
Then  stretching  out  his  arms  to  his  companion,  he  fell  from  his 
horse,  dead.  His  loss  was  a  serious  one  to  the  South.  He  was  one 
of  their  ablest  commanding  generals.  S+ill  with  victory  so  near 
them  as  it  seemed  at  that  hour,  his  loss  could  not  alter  the  chances. 
His  body  was  borne  quietly  from  the  field  and  the  fight  went  on. 

As  darkness  fell,  Beauregard  gave  orders  for  his  men  to  suspend 
battle  for  the  night.  That  morning  he  had  pointed  to  the  tents, 
where  our  army  lay,  unconscious  of  the  near  danger,  and  said  to  his 
officers.  “  Gentlemen,  we  will  sleep  to-night  in  the  enemy’s  camp.” 
He  was  right.  The  whole  Union  lines  had  fallen  back  so  far  from 
their  position  that  the  conquering  rebels  held  their  camping  ground 
of  the  night  previous.  If  he  had  gone  on  with  the  battle,  in  spite  of 
growing  darkness,  he  might  perhaps  have  pushed  the  Union  troops 
to  the  river  and  forced  them  to  “  surrender  or  drown.” 

That  night  Beauregard  sat  in  his  tent  till  after  midnight,  writ¬ 
ing  the  report  of  the  “  glorious  victory  of  the  Confederate  Army.” 
While  he  wrote,  the  fresh  troops  of  General  Buell,  who  had  been 
hurrying  up  to  join  Grant  the  previous  day,  were  arriving,  regiment 
after  regiment,  brigade  after  brigade.  General  Lew.  Wallace,  with 
his  5,000  men,  was  also  in  camp,  after  a  hard  march  the  afternoon 
previous.  When  Monday  morning  dawned  there  was  an  army  of 


486 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


50,000  Unionists  at  Shiloh,  ready  to  regain  what  they  had  lost  the 
day  before.  Beauregard’s  army  had  dwindled,  by  the  killed, 
wounded,  and  missing,  in  Sunday’s  fight,  to  hardly  more  than  80,000. 
While  he  wrote  in  proud  security  of  victory,  the  tables  were  ready 
to  be  turned  upon  him. 

The  battle  of  the  second  day  began  when  these  masses  of  fresh 
soldiers  were  hurled  against  the  rebels,  already  worn  by  the  hard 
fight  of  the  first  day  ;  a  less  soldierly  eye  than  that  of  Beauregard 
could  have  foreseen  the  issue.  He  made  a  gallant  show  of  resist¬ 
ance,  but  fell  back  constantly.  At  noon,  he  ordered  a  retreat 
towards  the  stronghold  at  Corinth.  On  Monday  afternoon  Grant’s 
banners  fluttered  victorious  over  the  Battle-field  of  Shiloh. 
I  have  told  you  that  the  end  of  the  rebel  lines  at  Columbus  fell  back 
to  Island  No.  10,  an  island  in  the  Mississippi,  just  where  the' river 
makes  a  double  curve  between  Kentucky  and  Arkansas.  This 
island  had  been  strongly  fortified.  The  town  of  New  Madrid,  lying 
opposite  in  Arkansas,  was  also  guarded  by  rebel  forces  under  the 
famous  guerrilla  chieftain,  Jeff.  Thompson.  Rebel  batteries,  planted 
up  and  down  on  both  sides  of  the  river,  were  ready  to  sweep  vessels 
coming  down  the  stream,  and  a  fleet  of  gun-boats  lying  off  New 
Madrid  lent  their  aid  in  making  this  point  in  the  river  impassable. 
While  Grant  was  lying  at  Pittsburg  Landing  awaiting  the  battles 
of  Shiloh,  which  broke  up  the  centre  of  the  rebel  lines  as  effectually 
as  it  had  been  before  broken  up  at  Donelson,  General  John 
Pope,  who  had  been  generailing  in  Missouri  since  the  war  began, 
was  proceeding  to  take  Island  No.  10. 

The  first  thing  Pope  did  was  to  drive  Jeff.  Thompson  away  from 
New  Madrid  and  take  possession  with  his  army.  This  was  not  a 
work  of  much  time.  Thompson  saw  that  it  was  not  a  place  that  he 
could  hold,  and  accordingly  lie  took  advantage  of  a  dark  night,  and  a 
tremendous  thunder-storm,  and  landed  all  his  troops  on  the  island, 
leaving  Pope  to  come  peaceably  into  his  desired  head-quarters. 

Just  about  this  time  Commodore  Foote,  who  had  been  in  Cairo 
repairing  his  vessels,  battered  in  the  attack  on  Donelson,  appeared 
on  the  scene  of  action.  Eighteen  gun-boats,  all  made  as  good  as 
new,  prepared  to  pound  away  with  their  cannon  and  mortar-guns  on 
Island  No.  10. 

The  attack  was  begun  March  16th,  and  promised  to  be  slow  busi¬ 
ness.  The  batteries  along  the  shore  answered  back  Foote’s  firing. 
The  days  went  by  till  April,  and  still  the  island  remained  appar- 


SHILOH,  ISLAND  NO.  10,  AND  CORINTH. 


487 


ently  as  strong  as  ever.  Pope,  at  his  headquarters  in  New  Madrid, 
was  all  the  time  chafing  with  impatience  at  his  inability  to  hasten 
on  affairs.  One  morning  Gen.  Hamilton  of  his  army  came  to  him 
with  a  brilliant  suggestion.  He  proposed  to  cut  a  canal  straight 
across  a  swampy  tongue  of  land  jutting  out  into  the  river  opposite 
the  island,  through  which  gun-boats  would  pass  out  of  reach  of 
shore  or  island  batteries,  get  down  below  No.  10,  and  so  attack  it  in 
front  and  rear  at  once.  The  plan  was  at  once  acted  on.  In  nine¬ 
teen  days  the  soldiers,  commanded  by  the  army  engineers,  had  cut 
a  canal  twelve  miles  long,  through  the  swampy  peninsula,  covered 
with  trees  which  had  to  be  sawed  by  hand  four  feet  under  water. 


Building  the  Canal. 


On  the  5th  of  April  the  enemy  saw  a  fleet  coming  up  from  below, 
upon  their  defenses.  Already  several  of  their  shore  batteries  had 
been  silenced.  They  saw  that  Island  No.  10  was  as  good  as  taken, 
and  resolved  to  save  themselves  by  instant  flight.  Pope  heard  of 
this  intention,  and  hastened  down  below  to  cut  off  their  retreat. 
The  fugitives,  hemmed  in  by  the  river  on  one  hand,  the  swamps  on 
the  other,  Pope’s  army  in  front  and  their  deserted  stronghold  in  the 
rear,  could  do  nothing  but  surrender.  Nearly  7,000  men  were  taken 
prisoners  without  striking  a  blow.  The  same  day  the  rebels  remain¬ 
ing  on  the  island  sent  a  flag  to  Commodore  Foote,  and  the  place  was 
in  his  hands  when  Pope  returned.  This  happened  on  the  8th  of 
April,  the  day  after  the  victory  at  Shiloh. 


488 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


Pope  went  immediately  over  to  join  Grant’s  army,  who  had  begun 
the  siege  of  Corinth,  where  Beauregard  had  retreated  from  Shiloh. 
There  the  rebels  had  built,  or  pretended  to  build,  another  set  of  im¬ 
pregnable  fortresses.  General  Halleck,  who  had  come  down  from 
Missouri  to  take  the  chief  command,  was  very  cautious  about  moving 
upon  the  enemy’s  works.  Grant,  Pope,  and  Sherman  were  all  in 
front  of  Corinth,  waiting  the  order  from  Halleck  to  attack.  But 
although  there  was  some  skirmishing  and  a  constant  advance,  over  a 
month  slipped  by,  and  the  town  was  not  taken.  On  the  night  of 
May  30th  a  terrible  explosion  was  heard  in  Corinth.  The  soldiers 
in  the  Union  camp  could  see  clouds  of  smoke  rolling  into  the  air. 
Sherman  was  ordered  forward  to  look  out  for  the  enemy  and  see 
what  they  were  doing.  He  found  Corinth  empty.  The  rebels  had 
decamped  again.  For  days  Beauregard  had  been  sending  his  most 
valuable  stores  away  south  to  Mobile.  He  had  gone  with  his  army 
to  Tupelo,  a  place  commanding  the  railway  lines  to  Mobile  and  New 
Orleans.  He  began  to  feel  that  it  was  important  to  be  near  the 
railway  in  case  of  further  retreat.  This  was  Beauregard’s  last 
strategy,  however.  Jefferson  Davis,  who  was  at  Richmond  making 
believe  that  he  was  president  of  a  “  great  and  glorious  country,” 
was  tired  of  him.  He  took  advantage  of  his  temporary  illness  to 
put  General  Bragg  in  his  place,  and  the  star  of  Beauregard,  who 
was  really  a  very  able  military  man,  went  down  below  the  horizon. 
The  rebels  fought  no  more  battles  with  him  for  a  leader. 

After  Pope  left  for  Corinth,  Commodore  Foote  with  those  inde¬ 
fatigable  gun-boats  proceeded  down  the  river  to  take  Memphis, 
where  Jeff.  Thompson,  who  had  got  away  from  the  siege  of 
No.  10,  had  made  another  stand.  There  were  a  few  small 
obstacles  along  the  river  in  the  way  of  forts  and  batteries,  but  Foote 
proceeded  slowly,  taking  these  by  the  way,  in  the  same  deliberate, 
matter  of  course  way  in  which  he  would  eat  his  dinner.  Fort  Pil¬ 
low  was  taken  with  the  most  difficulty,  and  caused  him  the  delay  of 
a  week  or  two.  But  when,  on  the  6th  day  of  June,  he  arrived  at 
Memphis,  the  rebels  had  again  fled,  and  there  was  nothing  to  do 
but  anchor  the  gun-boats  in  the  river  and  march  the  troops  into  the 
city.  Thus  the  first  half  of  the  year  1862  ended.  In  those  six 
months  Henry  and  Donelson  had  been  taken;  the  rebel  line  had 
again  been  broken  at  Shiloh;  Island  No.  10  had  been  captured,  and 
the  Mississippi  was  free  of  obstruction  as  far  south  as  Memphis. 

The  Union  troops,  under  General  Mitchell,  were  scouring  Ala- 


CAPTURE  OF  NEW  ORLEANS. 


489 


bama,  setting  up  our  flag  there.  In  these  six  months  the  rebels  had 
been  driven  through  the  States  of  Kentucky  and  Tennessee  ;  our 
armies  had  got  a  foot-hold  in  Alabama  and  Mississippi,  and  events 
looked  bright  for  the  full  possession  of  the  great  inland  river  of  the 
West.  At  length  the  nation  seemed  to  have  found  a  military  leader 
in  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  to  whom  the  honor  of  these  victories  princi¬ 
pally  belonged. 


CHAPTER  XLI. 

CAPTURE  OF  NEW  ORLEANS. 

Ship  Island.  —  Admiral  Farragut.  —  Birnam  Wood.  —  A  Huge  Fire  Monster.  —  Cutting  away 
the  Barriers.  —  Passing  the  Forts.  — The  Levee  at  New  Orleans.  — A  Bombastic  Major.  — 
Temper  of  the  Citizens.  — What  “  Beast  Butler  ”  did  in  New  Orleans. 

After  General  Butler  returned  from  his  expedition  to  Idatteras 
Inlet,  he  went  to  Washington  to  ask  what  he  could  do  next.  Talk¬ 
ing  one  day  with  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  the  secretary  of  war,  the  ques¬ 
tion  was  asked,  “  Why  cannot  New  Orleans  be  taken  ?  ”  “  It 

can,”  answered  General  Butler  briefly  and  emphatically. 

Butler  was  a  man  who  could  almost  make  other  men  believe  that 
possibilities  were  certainties.  The  next  thing  we  hear  of  him  after 


Fort  Massachusetts  on  Ship  Island. 


his  talk  with  Stanton,  is  that  he  commanded  an  expedition  to  cap¬ 
ture  New  Orleans.  In  February,  1862,  he  started  from  Hampton 
Roads  in  the  steamship  Mississippi.  The  purpose  for  which  he 
sailed  was  carefully  concealed  from  the  public. 

Ship  Island  is  a  low-lying  strip  of  land,  hardly  high  enough  to 


490 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


keep  its  head  above  water  in  stormy  seasons,  which  forms  one  of  a 
group  on  the  Mississippi  coast.  It  looks  like  a  strip  of  white  beach 
that  has  floated  off  the  shore.  Nothing  grows  there  except  a  few 
stunted  pine-trees  on  one  end  of  the  island.  When  General  Butler 
reached  there  in  March,  1862,  it  looked  as  if  the  white  sand  had 
just  yielded  a  crop  of  white  tents,  thickly  dotting  the  island.  They 
were  the  camp-tents  of  General  Phelps,  who,  with  6,000  men, 
was  eagerly  waiting  his  arrival. 

At  Ship  Island  Butler  was  joined  by  Admiral  Farragut,  one  of 
the  oldest,  as  well  as  one  of  the  youngest  men  in  the  United  States 
navy.  He  was  one  of  the  oldest,  because  it  was  fifty-two  years 
since  he  had  joined  the  United  States  navy,  then  a  boy  midship¬ 
man,  eleven  years  old.  He  was  one  of  the  youngest,  because  there 
was  not  a  boy  in  the  fleet  more  light  and  agile,  quick-footed  and 
quick  in  all  action  than  he.  Admiral  Farragut  and  General  Butler 
shook  hands,  and  proceeded  to  talk  about  the  capture  of  New 
Orleans. 

New  Orleans,  as  you  know,  is  on  the  Mississippi,  a  little  more 
than  one  hundred  miles  from  the  place  where  the  great  river  tears 
through  the  land  in  five  different  places  and  plunges  into  the  Gulf. 
Every  approach  to  New  Orleans  by  land  had  been  carefully  forti¬ 
fied.  The  approach  up  the  river  was  guarded  by  two  forts  opposite 
each  other,  thirty  miles  from  the  river  mouths,  and  seventy-five 
from  the  city.  They  were  Fort  Jackson  and  Fort  St.  Philip,  both 
very  strong  and  well  garrisoned.  To  take  New  Orleans  by  the 
river,  our  ships  must  either  take  these  forts  by  bombardment,  or 
pass  them  under  the  constant  fire  of  their  guns.  Let  us  see  what 
Farragut  did. 

He  took  plenty  of  time  to  get  ready.  There  were  forty-eight 
vessels  in  all,  carrying  three  hundred  and  ten  guns.  Think  what  a 
noise  that  fleet  would  make  when  all  those  guns  were  in  action ! 
These  ships  were  guarded,  many  of  them,  with  an  armor  of  chains, 
skillfully  interlaced  over  the  ship’s  sides  to  protect  her  from  balls, 
much  as  a  knight  of  old  was  protected  by  his  armor.  The  wood 
work  was  painted  a  dull  brown,  to  make  it  undistinguishable  from 
the  muddy  river  water.  Others  of  the  vessels  had  their  sides  coated 
with  the  reeds  that  bordered  the  river,  so  that  they  looked,  as  they 
lay  along  the  banks,  almost  like  a  part  of  the  shore.  Just  above 
Fort  Jackson  the  bank  was  thickly  wooded,  and  some  of  the  vessels 
had  trees  lashed  to  their  rigging  to  simulate  the  forest.  As  they 


CAPTURE  OF  NEW  ORLEANS. 


491 


steamed  slowly  up  the  river  they  must  have  looked  like  Macduff’s 
army  when  it  marched  to  Dunsinane  with  the  branches  of  Birnam 
wood  on  its  shoulders. 

On  the  17th  of  April  twenty-one  mortar  steamers,  led  by  Com¬ 
modore  Porter,  started  up  the  river  to  bombard  Fort  Jackson. 
They  were  met  at  the  first  by  a  huge  fire-monster  which  came 
slowly  floating  down  into  the  middle  of  their  fleet.  It  was  a  raft 
piled  high  with  wood  soaked  in  turpentine,  and  set  on  fire.  A  boat 
from  the  fleet  pushed  out  boldly,  threw  grappling  irons  on  the  mon¬ 
ster,  and  towed  her  to  shore  out  of  reach  of  the  Union  vessels. 
There  she  burned  slowly  to  the  water’s  edge,  a  magnificent  bonfire. 
On  the  18th,  the  bombardment  began.  Fort  Jackson  was  a  little 
lower  down  than  Fort  St.  Philip,  and  the  first  attack  fell  upon  it. 
From  vessels  and  fort,  crossing  each  other  in  the  air,  came  cannon¬ 
ball  and  bomb-shell,  with  smoke,  a  flash,  and  then  a  roar,  that 


Ram  attacking  Union  Vessel  below  New  Orleans. 


seemed  to  shake  the  solid  earth  to  its  foundations.  “  Combine  all 
you  ever  heard  of  thunder  with  all  you  ever  saw  of  lightning,”  said 
one  of  the  officers  who  was  in  the  bombardment,  “  and  you  will 
have  a  faint  idea  of  the  scene.” 

For  three  days  the  gun-boats  kept  up  the  bombardment,  and  there 
were  no  signs  of  yielding  in  the  fort.  “  Whatever  is  done  must  be 
done  quickly,”  said  Farragut.  “  The  forts  must  be  run,  and  the 
fleet  be  brought  to  New  Orleans.  Then  our  troops  can  attack  the 
strongholds  in  the  rear,  and  take  them  by  assault.”  But  there  was 
au  obstacle  to  a  passage  up  the  river  even  more  formidable  than  the 
cannon  that  swept  it  from  the  two  fortresses.  Several  schooners 
were  strongly  anchored  at  intervals,  all  the  way  across  the  river. 
Over  these  vessels,  wound  firmly  round  the  capstan  of  each,  a  strong 


492 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


chain-cable  passed  from  shore  to  shore,  forming  an  impassable  bar¬ 
rier.  This  cable  must  be  removed  before  the  Union  fleet  could  pass 
up  to  New  Orleans.  In  the  darkness  of  night,  two  of  the  gun-boats 
were  sent  to  cut  the  cable.  With  hammer  and  chisel,  under  cover 
of  the  night,  they  worked  away  till  the  chain  parted,  and  the  hulks 
on  which  it  was  supported  swept  down  the  current,  leaving  the 
way  clear. 

Farragut  divided  the  fleet  going  up  the  river  into  three  parts. 
One  division  was  to  hug  the  shore  on  the  side  of  Fort  St.  Philip, 
and  fire  into  it  in  passing;  the  second  was  to  go  up  the  middle  of 
the  river  and  watch  for  rebel  gun-boats  sent  from  New  Orleans  ; 
the  third,  with  Farragut  at  their  head,  in  his  flag-ship  Hartford , 
was  to  go  under  the  walls  of  Jackson  on  the  left  bank. 

It  was  one  o’clock  in  the  morning  when  the  three  lines  started 
in  single  file  up  the  river.  For  five  miles  they  would  be  exposed 
to  the  enemy’s  fire.  As  soon  as  the  vessels  began  their  stately" 
march,  first  Jackson  and  then  St.  Philip  opened  on  them.  Cannon- 


Levee  at  New  Orleans. 


ball,  bomb-shell,  and  grape-shot  answered  back  from  the  fleet. 
There  was  no  light  but  that  from  the  battle,  but  the  quick  firing 
kept  the  river  in  a  glow.  Now  and  then,  too,  great  fire-rafts  came 
floating  down  among  the  fleet,  shedding  a  terrible  illumination  on 
the  scene.  Once  Farragut’s  ship,  the  Hartford ,  was  set  all  ablaze 
with  one  of  these,  but  was  speedily  put  out  before  the  flames  had 
done  much  damage.  When  the  ships  had  passed  the  forts,  they 
were  met  by  a  fleet  of  gun -boats  stretched  across  the  stream  to  op¬ 
pose  the  passage.  The  vessels  made  quick  work  of  these.  Eleven 
of  them  were  destroyed  in  half  an  hour,  and  could  be  seen,  riddled 
and  dismantled  hulks,  drifting  down  the  river. 


CAPTURE  OF  NEW  ORLEANS. 


493 


On  the  morning  of  the  24th  of  April  seventeen  vessels  steamed 
up  to  the  levee  in  New  Orleans  to  demand  the  surrender  of  the  city. 
The  people  had  not  believed  the  town  could  be  taken.  They  had 
feasted  and  danced,  given  parties  and  balls,  gone  to  the  theatres 
as  usual,  all  the  time  Farragut’s  fleet  was  bombarding  the  forts. 
Pleasure  parties  had  come  down  the  river  to  look  on  the  bombard¬ 
ment  from  a  safe  distance,  as  a  pretty  sight  that  could  not  result  in 
harm  to  their  city.  When  they  heard  that  Farragut  was  coming  up 
the  stream,  a  panic  seized  the  citizens.  The  streets  were  filled  with 
an  excited  crowd.  General  Lovell,  commanding  the  rebel  troops, 
decided  at  once  to  remove  from  the  city,  and  leave  it  to  the  civil 
authorities.  The  citizens,  with  their  own  hands,  put  the  torch  to 
the  piles  of  cotton  on  the  levee,  and  it  was  amid  the  smoke  and 
flame  of  this  burning  that  Farragut  anchored.  Many  voices  cried, 
“  Burn  the  city,”  and  women  offered  to  light  the  fires  which  would 
consume  their  homes.  But  better  counsels  prevailed,  and  the  city 
was  left  standing. 

In  the  mean  time,  as  soon  as  Farragut  had  passed  the  forts  and 
was  safely  on  his  way  up  the  river,  Butler  embarked  his  troops  in 
small  boats  to  enter  the  creeks  and  bayous  that  led  round  to  the 
rear  of  St.  Philip,  that  he  might  take  it  by  a  desperate  assault. 
But  this  bloodshed  was  saved.  The  men  in  the  fort  had  mutinied, 
believing  defense  was  impossible,  and  our  first  detachment  of  troops 
was  met  by  a  large  party  who  had  spiked  the  cannon  and  came  out 
to  surrender. 

New  Orleans  had  a  fiery  mayor  whose  name  was  John  T.  Monroe. 
He  should  have  been  called  Bombastes  Furioso.  When  Farragut 
asked  him  to  haul  down  the  flag  of  secession  from  over  the  United 
States  buildings  in  New  Orleans,  he  answered  in  the  strain  of  Bom¬ 
bastes,  “The  man  lives  not  in  our  midst  whose  hand  and  heart  would 
not  be  paralyzed  at  the  mere  thought  of  such  an  act,”  and  much 
more  to  that  effect.  On  which  the  admiral  sent  a  company  on 
shore,  who  hoisted  the  American  flag  on  the  United  States  Mint, 
where  it  waved  as  if  it  had  never  been  pulled  down  from  thence. 

At  this  juncture  came  news  that  the  forts  below  were  in  our 
hands.  This  was  the  last  blow  to  the  hopes  of  the  rebels,  of  New 
Orleans,  and  they  submitted  sullenly  to  the  entrance  of  General 
Butler  and  his  troops.  New  Orleans  was  taken,  and  all  the  valuable 
property  of  the  United  States  so  long  in  the  hands  of  the  rebels, 
was  restored  to  the  government. 


494 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


Butler  at  once  took  military  command.  The  city  streets  over¬ 
flowed  with  an  angry  mob  whose  mutte rings  filled  the  whole  air. 
They  glared  upon  him  and  upon  the  United  States  soldiers  with  the 
glare  of  beasts.  The  women  were  even  more  bitter  than  the  men. 
They  crossed  to  the  middle  of  the  street  that  they  might  not  pass  an 
officer  or  a  soldier  of  the  United  States.  They  openly  reviled  the 
flag  of  their  country.  They  lost  no  opportunity  of  insulting,  by  a 
great  show  of  contempt,  all  those  who  wore  the  uniform  of  the  gov¬ 
ernment.  Once,  two  women,  dressed  like  ladies,  spit  in  the  face  of 
an  unoffending  soldier,  in  the  public  street.  Butler  never  took  half 
way  measures.  He  fought  treason  and  insult  with  their  own  weap¬ 
ons.  He  sent  the  most  stubborn  cases  to  the  fort  in  which  traitors 
were  confined  as  prisoners  of  war.  He  enforced  an  outward  show  of 
respect  to  the  government.  He  insisted  that  the  flag  and  its  soldiers 
should  not  be  publicly  insulted.  By  the  measures  he  took  to  keep 
order,  he  drew  down  upon  himself  the  bitterest  hatred  of  those  most 
devoted  to  the  cause  of  rebellion.  u  Beast  Butler”  was  the  name  he 
gained  all  over  the  South.  A  reward  of  $10,000  was  offered  for  his 
head.  No  other  man  was  hated  as  he  was,  by  the  secessionists. 

All  the  time  Butler  showed  himself  an  excellent  manager.  He 
cleaned  the  streets  of  New  Orleans  as  they  were  never  cleaned 
before.  “  If  the  Yankees  do  not  know  anything  else,  they  know 
how  to  clean  streets,”  owned  one  of  the  hostile  newspapers.  He 
took  such  health  measures  that  the  yellow  fever,  the  yearly  scourge 
of  the  city,  was  kept  away.  He  organized  a  system  of  relief  by 
which  the  starving  poor  were  fed,  and  kept  comfortable.  He  did  all 
these  things  without  costing  the  government  a  penny.  Indeed,  he 
sent  to  W ashington  a  sum  of  money,  the  product  of  the  crops  he  had 
saved  by  his  good  management.  All  this  he  did  from  May  until 
December,  1862,  when  General  Nathaniel  P.  Banks  was  sent  to  take 
his  place  as  military  ruler  of  New  Orleans. 

Butler  was  not  a  mild  ruler  of  the  rebellious  people  of  New 
Orleans.  He  believed  with  all  his  soul  in  putting  down  rebellion, 
and  he  hated  secession  as  bad  as  secessionists  hated  the  government. 
War  is  not  mild  or  amiable  under  any  aspect.  And  the  soldier  who 
does  not  hesitate  or  temporize  is  the  man  who  is  likely  soonest  to 
bring  about  peace.  Stonewall  Jackson,  one  of  the  ablest  generals 
in  the  Southern  army  was  strongly  in  favor  of  giving  no  quarter  to 
the  Yankee  soldiers  in  his  battles.  He  said  this  would  be  the  truest 
humanity,  and  in  the  end  would  save  bloodshed,  because  it  would 


PENINSULAR  CAMPAIGN. 


495 


shorten  the  contest.1  He  was  overruled  in  this,  but  believed  to  his 
death  that  an  entire  slaughter  of  his  foes,  even  after  their  surrender, 
was  the  true  policy. 

None  of  the  Northern  generals  favored  such  a  sanguinary  course. 
But  Butler  was  almost  as  uncompromising  as  Jackson.  He  believed 
that  when  the  nation  was  engaged  in  a  life  and  death  struggle  for 
existence,  the  time  for  mild  measures  was  past. 

I  have  told  you  that  Butler  was  never  an  antislavery  man,  but  a 
strong  defender  of  the  rights  of  the  South  to  her  peculiar  institution. 
Years  before  the  war,  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe  of  Massachusetts  had 
written  a  book  called  “  Uncle  Tom’s  Cabin,”  in  which  the  horrors 
of  slavery  were  depicted  so  strongly  that  the  whole  civilized  world 
read  the  book  with  shuddering  and  tears.  General  Butler  had 
regarded  this  book  with  contempt,  as  a  highly  colored,  overdrawn 
picture  of  Southern  servitude.  But  when  he  left  New  Orleans  in 
the  year  1862,  this  is  what  he  said  :  — 

“  I  have  seen  with  my  own  eyes,  and  heard  with  my  own  ears, 
many  things  in  slavery  which  go  as  much  beyond  Mrs.  Stowe’s  book, 
as  her  book  goes  beyond  an  ordinary  school-girl  novel.” 


CHAPTER  XLII. 

PENINSULAR  CAMPAIGN. 

Quiet  on  the  Potomac.  —  Quaker  Guns.  —  Transportation  of  an  Army.  —  On  to  Richmond.  — 
Death  in  the  Swamps.  — Norfolk  taken  by  General  Wool.  —  Stonewall  Jackson  in  Western 
Virginia.  —  Seven  Days’  Retreat.  —  Discouragement  of  the  President. 

Through  January  and  February  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  still 
remained  quiet.  The  country  chafed  under  this  quietude.  The 
men  and  money  which  had  been  poured  out  so  lavishly  to  retrieve 
the  disaster  at  Bull  Run  seemed  like  water  poured  through  a  sieve. 
Wasting  in  inaction  the  army  lay  in  Virginia  while  rebel  banners 
still  waved  under  the  eyes  of  the  government  at  Washington. 

President  Lincoln,  who  was  by  the  Constitution  the  commander- 
in-chief  of  the  whole  army,  insisted  on  an  advance.  The  rebels 
were  still  at  Manassas.  If  ever  any  army  could  take  that  post, 
should  it  not  be  that  army  nearly  two  hundred  thousand  strong 
lying  idle  on  the  Potomac  ?  At  last,  after  all  this  wearv  delav.  an 

1  S$e  Southern  biography  of  Jackson  by  Dabney 
32 


496 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


advance  was  ordered  by  McClellan.  Our  troops  reached  Manassas 
the  8th  day  of  March  to  find  it  empty.  For  days  General  Joseph 

Johnston,  who  had  taken  com¬ 
mand  when  Beauregard  left  for 
Tennessee,  had  been  carefully 
moving  away  from  Manassas. 
When  their  fortifications  were 
examined,  it  was  found  that  some 
of  the  cannon  which  had  held 
back  the  Union  army  were  made 
of  logs,  with  a  black  spot  painted 
in  the  sawed  end  to  simulate 
the  cannon’s  mouth.  In  one 
place  an  old  stove-pipe  had  done 
duty  as  a  gun.  A  cry  of  rage  and  disappointment  went  up  all  over 
the  country  as  these  “  Quaker  guns  ”  were  found  to  be  part  of  the 
tremendous  batteries  of  the  rebel  stronghold. 

If  Richmond  could  be  taken,  such  a  blow  would  be  given  to  the 
rebellion  as  would  virtually  put  an  end  to  the  war.  So  the  North 
believed,  and  the  loyal  people  anxiously  awaited  McClellan’s  long 
promised  march  to  Richmond.  That  general  who  had  such  ability 
at  keeping  his  plans  to  himself  that  many  people  doubted  whether 
he  had  any  plans  at  all,  at  length  began  to  develop  signs  of  a  move¬ 
ment  on  Richmond  by  water.  In  March  he  transported  an  army 
of  121,000  men  to  Fortress  Monroe.  He  moved  them  with  great 
skill  and  ability,  with  all  the  innumerable  wagons,  provisions, 
ammunition,  clothing,  tents,  and  other  necessaries  that  form  the 
outfit  of  such  an  immense  army.  From  the  fortress,  this  great 
military  caravan  took  up  its  march  upon  Yorktown,  the  very  spot 
where  Cornwallis  had  surrendered  in  1781. 

Yorktown  lay  on  that  swampy  stretch  of  land  lying  between  the 
York  and  James  rivers,  which  is  known  as  the  “  Peninsula,”  and 
this  campaign  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  is  known  as  the  “  Pe¬ 
ninsular  campaign.”  It  was  early  in  April  when  the  army  arrived 
there,  and  for  more  than  a  month  a  bloodless  siege  was  kept  up  be¬ 
fore  Yorktown,  where  the  enemy  were  supposed  to  be  in  full  force. 
On  the  4th  of  May  it  was  discovered  that  the  enemy  had  run  away 
in  the  night,  in  the  same  clever  way  in  which  he  had  run  away  at 
Manassas,  leaving  only  a  few  guns  and  the  useless  fortifications  to 
General  McClellan. 


PENINSULAR  CAMPAIGN. 


497 


General  Stoneman  was  sent  in  pursuit  of  the  enemy,  and  caught 
up  with  a  portion  of  them  under  General  Longstreet,  at  Williams¬ 
burg.  The  main  body  of  the  rebel  army  had  reached  Richmond. 
There  was  a  smart  fight  at  Williamsburg.  The  Union  General 
Joseph  Hooker,  who  was  known  as  “fighting  Joe  Hooker,”  bore 
the  brunt  of  the  battle.  There  was  really  no  decisive  victory 
gained  by  either  side,  although  it  was  a  costly  battle.  We  lost 
more  than  2,000  men,  without  any  result  to  our  arms.  After  it 
was  over  the  rebels  continued  their  march  towards  Richmond.  Our 
army  followed  to  the  banks  of  the  Chickahominy,  a  small  stream 
flowing  between  the  York  River  and  Richmond. 

Those  of  us  who  lived  in  these  sad  days  can  never  forget  the  dark 
months  in  which  our  army  lay  on  the  banks  of  the  Chickahominy 
River.  It  was  a  sluggish,  muddy  stream,  with  swampy  borders, 
from  which  poisonous  vapors  rose  unde?  the  heat  of  the  summer  sun. 
The  army  were  set  at  once  to  digging  trenches  and  building  out¬ 
works  as  a  defense  against  their  foes  at  Richmond.  The  men, 
forced  to  dig  all  day  in  the  sun,  and  encamped  by  night  on  the  damp 
ground,  fell  victims  to  all  forms  of  murderous  malaria.  “  They  died 
as  fast  as  if  a  plague  had  raged,”  said  one  of  the  army  physicians. 
It  was  a  sad  sight  to  see  this  noble  army  melting  away,  day  by 
day. 

The  only  encouraging  event  that  had  happened  after  the  Monitor 
had  driven  the  Merrimack  clear  out  of  Hampton  Roads,  was  an  ex¬ 
ploit  of  old  General  Wool,  who  had  been  stationed  at  Fortress  Mon¬ 
roe  since  Butler  was  sent  to  New  Orleans.  He  had  been  asking 
for  permission  to  go  on  an  expedition  against  Norfolk,  where  early 
in  the  war  our  navy-yard  had  been  seized  and  was  still  held  by 
the  rebels.  Norfolk  was  the  lurking  place  of  the  iron  ram  Merri¬ 
mack,  and  was  a  valuable  point  to  the  enemy. 

In  March  General  Wool  got  the  long  wished  for  permission,  and 
sent  down  his  gun-boats  and  troops  to  take  the  place.  As  on  so 
many  other  occasions  when  they  saw  a  force  approaching,  the  rebels 
had  evacuated,  and  on  the  evening  of  March  10th  General  Wool’s 
troops  marched  into  Norfolk.  Before  the  rebels  left  they  blew  up 
the  Merrimack ,  and  the  remains  of  that  formidable  war  ship  were 
sinking  in  the  harbor  when  the  Unionists  took  possession.  This 
was  something  good  to  remember,  while  events  looked  so  dark  on 
the  Peninsula. 

Johnston,  with  his  army  at  Richmond,  finding  that  McClellan 


498 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


did  not  come  to  attack  him  there,  came  out  to  attack  McClellan. 
They  met  in  the  battle  of  Fair  Oaks ,  which,  like  most  of  the  other 
battles  on  the  Peninsula,  was  not  favorable  to  the  Unionists.  John¬ 
ston  was  wounded  here,  and  after  the  battle  the  rebels  all  fell  back 
to  Richmond  again.  It  was  said  that  Jefferson  Davis  himself  rode 
out  and  led  in  a  charge  at  Fair  Oaks.  He  might  have  done  that,  for 
he  had  proved  himself  a  good  soldier  in  Mexico,  years  before. 

Robert  E.  Lee,  who  had  been  growing  more  and  more  in  favor 
with  the  rebels,  was  made  general-in-chief  of  their  armies  after 
Johnston’s  wound  rendered  him  unfit  for  command.  Stonewall 
Jackson,  who  had  been  pressing  General  Banks  and  General  Fre¬ 
mont  in  western  Virginia,  was  now  called  to  join  Lee  at  Richmond, 
and  aid  in  driving  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  from  the  Peninsula. 
There  were  few  abler  generals  in  the  war  than  General  Stonewall 
Jackson,  on  either  side.  All  through  May  he  had  been  making 
havoc  among  our  armies  in  West  Virginia.  He  had  held  Banks  in 
check,  preventing  him  from  doing  any  good  to  the  cause,  and  had 
driven  Fremont  and  his  army  out  of  the  Shenandoah  Valley.  The 
government  in  Washington,  poorly  guarded,  and  trembling  lest  Mc¬ 
Clellan’s  army  should  be  cut  off  from  the  capital,  feared  the  name 
of  Stonewall  Jackson.  His  campaign  in  the  spring  of  1862  had 
been  one  of  the  most  brilliant  of  the  war  on  either  side. 

For  almost  a  month  after  the  battle  of  Fair  Oaks,  our  army  kept 
on  dying  in  the  swamps  of  the  Cliickahominy,  while  General  Mc¬ 
Clellan  decided  whether  or  not  he  would  retreat  to  the  James  River. 
The  enemy  helped  him  to  make  up  his  mind,  by  coming  out  again 
to  attack  him.  They  came  up  with  the  national  army  at  Mechan- 
icsville,  and  a  battle  was  fought  there  on  the  26th,  which  was  fol¬ 
lowed  by  McClellan’s  order  next  day  to  retreat  towards  the  James 
River;  Then  began  an  epoch  which  is  known  as  the  “  Seven  Days’ 
retreat.”  For  a  week,  a  battle  was  fought  almost  daily,  the  great 
Arpoy  of  the  Potomac  retreating  all  the  time  towards  the  river,  upon 
whose  banks  they  were  ordered  to  fall  back.  From  the  26th  of 
June  till  the  1st  of  July  the  fighting  and  the  retreat  kept  up.  On 
the  morning  of  the  1st  the  Union  army  was  on  Malvern  Hill,  a  high 
ridge  of  land  sloping  towards  the  James.  Here  for  the  last  time, 
Lee  attacked,  late  in  the  hot  summer  afternoon.  The  rebels  were 
driven  back  when  darkness  fell,  broken  and  disabled  by  the  fight. 
The  Unionists  exulted  over  a  victory,  and  many  officers  believed 
that  even  Richmond  might  yet  be  won,  if  a  decisive  blow  followed 


INVASION  OF  MARYLAND. 


499 


that  of  Malvern  Hill.  To  their  disappointment,  General  McClellan 
ordered  the  retreat  continued,  and  on  the  3d  of  July  the  remnant 
of  the  army  was  at  Harrison’s  Landing  on  the  banks  of  the  James. 
Of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  that  had  at  one  time  been  swelled  to 
160,000,  McClellan  reported  to  President  Lincoln  that  he  had  only 
50,000  men  left.  The  “  Peninsular  campaign  ”  had  been  a  great 
Moloch,  that  had  swallowed  its  prey  by  thousands  upon  thousands. 

President  Lincoln  came  at  once  to  Harrison’s  Landing  to  talk 
with  McClellan.  Discouraged,  almost  heart-broken  by  these  long 
series  of  failures,  the  president  ordered  the  army  to  come  back  and 
guard  Washington,  for  whose  safety  much  alarm  had  been  felt. 
McClellan  returned,  slowly  and  reluctantly,  and  took  command  of 
the  Washington  defenses.  General  Halleck  was  called  from  Mis¬ 
souri  to  the  seat  of  government,  and  was  made  general-in-chief  of 
the  armies.  Lee,  satisfied  with  driving  the  Union  army  from  its 
position  before  Richmond,  returned  to  that  city  to  be  hailed  by  the 
rebels  as  a  conquering  hero. 


CHAPTER  XLIII. 

INVASION  OF  MARYLAND. 

Pope  takes  Command. — More  Defeats. — Maryland!  my  Maryland! — Entrance  into  Fred¬ 
erick.  —  Barbara  Frietchie.  —  Through  the  Mountain-gap.  —  McCellan  makes  haste.  —  The 
Antietam  Creek.  — Fighting  Joe  Hooker.  —  The  Battle.  — Lee’s  Retreat.  — Burnside  made 
Commander.  —  Ruins  of  Fredericksburg. 

After  General  Pope’s  success  on  the  Mississippi,  he  was  called 
to  take  command  in  Virginia.  He  was  given  the  three  armies  com¬ 
manded  by  Fremont,  Banks,  and  McDowell.  As  Fremont  had 
been  a  superior  officer,  he  did  not  choose  to  serve  under  Pope,  and 
was  accordingly  relieved,  and  his  command  given  to  Sigel,  the 
brave  German  who  had  done  such  good  fighting  in  Missouri.  All 
mustered,  Pope’s  whole  army  numbered  about  40,000  men.  This 
army  lay  across  Virginia  from  Frederickburg  to  Harper’s  Ferry, 
then  west  to  Winchester,  in  the  pleasant  valley  of  the  Shenandoah. 
It  was  an  outer  girdle  of  defense  guarding  Washington;  where 
McClellan  was  again  bringing  into  order  the  remnant  of  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac. 

Lee,  who  had  been  so  long  on  the  defensive  in  Richmond,  now 


500 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


began  to  show  signs  of  an  attack  upon  our  national  capital.  He 
advanced  his  army  towards  Pope’s  lines,  to  beat  upon  them  and 
force  them  back.  If  he  could  invade  Washington, 
drive  President  Lincoln  from  the  seat  of  govern¬ 
ment,  that  would  be  a  victory  worth  having. 

I  am  sorry  that  I  cannot  write  of  Pope’s  successes 
in  his  new  field.  He  had  done  so  well  in  the  West 
that  great  things  were  hoped  of  him,  and,  unfor¬ 
tunately,  he  made  a  good  many  boasts  of  what  he 
was  going  to  do.  He  reminds  one  a  good  deal  of 
Gates  in  Revolutionary  times,  when,  after  his  success 
in  New  York,  he  came  to  the  Carolinas  and  talked 
loudly  about  “  Burgoyning  the  armies  of  Cornwallis.” 

But  all  this  summer  and  fall  defeat  seemed  to  cover 
with  a  pall  the  track  of  our  arms  in  Virginia. 

The  armies  of  Pope  and  Lee  met  in  a  bloody, 
deadly  battle  on  Cedar  Mountain,  sometimes 
called  Slaughter’s  Mount.  The  latter  name 
would  suit  the  place  best,  for  the 
sun  set  on  a  scene  of  slaughter  such 
ts  I  should  pray  it  might  never 
took  on  again.  Both  sides  claimed 
the  victory,  but  if  victory  rested 
on  either  side,  it  was  probably  with 
the  rebels.  This  was  August  8tli. 

During  the  next  three  weeks  three 
more  battles  were  fought  at  Grove- 
ton,  Bull  Run,  and  Chantilly.  The 
Bull  Run  battle  raged  on  the 
banks  of  the  same  stream,  across 

which  the  Union  army  had  fled  in  such  panic,  early  in  the  war. 
It  was  an  unlucky  place  to  us.  The  second  Bull  Run  battle  was 
also  a  defeat,  though  much  less  disgraceful  than  the  first.  On  the 
1st  of  September  the  Army  of  Virginia  was  also  recalled  to  Wash¬ 
ington,  as  broken  and  dispirited  as  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  on  its 
recall  from  the  Peninsula.  The  two  armies  were  again  blended 
into  one,  with  General  McClellan  in  command.  The  soldiers,  who 
had  always  had  a  great  affection  for  McClellan  —  “  Little  Mac,”  they 
called  him  —  received  him  again  as  their  commander  with  great 
delight.  As  he  rode  along  their  lines  they  tbcew  up  their  hats  and 
shouted  for  joy. 


War  Balloon. 


INVASION  OF  MARYLAND. 


501 


Very  greatly  satisfied  with  his  success  in  the  contest  with  Pope, 
General  Lee  turned  to  invade  Maryland.  He  was  not  yet  quite 
ready  to  attack  Washington,  and  he  concluded  to  try  what  he 
could  do  in  Maryland  in  enlisting  soldiers  for  his  army.  A  rebel 
song,  sung  all  over  the  South,  had  this  verse  :  — 

“  I  hear  the  distant  thunder  hum, 

Maryland  ! 

The  Old  Line’s  bugle,  fife,  and  drum, 

Maryland  ! 

She  is  not  dead,  or  deaf,  or  dumb  ; 

Huzza  !  she  spurns  the  Northern  scum  ! 

She  breathes  —  she  burns  !  she  ’ll  come  !  she  ’ll  come  ! 

Maryland  !  my  Maryland  !  ” 


But  although  Lee’s  soldiers  marched  to  this  music,  yet  Maryland 
did  not  come,  and  in  fact  refused  very  unequivocally  to  have  any¬ 
thing  to  do  with  rebellion.  Perhaps  the  appearance  of  Lee’s  army 
would  have  damped  the  ardor  of  the  warmest  rebel.  They  were  the 
raggedest  set  of  poor  fellows,  —  in  butternut-colored  homespun 
cloth,  that  ever  marched  behind  a  leader.  Many  of  them  had  no 
shoes  or  hats,  many  were  coatless,  and  Stonewall  Jackson  himself, 
so  famous  as  a  general,  looked  almost  as  dirty  and  ragged  as  one  of 
his  men.  The  heart  aches  in  viewing  these  miserable,  misguided 
adherents  of  a  bad  cause,  laying 
down  their  lives  to  establish  a 
government  which  they  had 

boasted  should  have  human  slav¬ 
ery  “  for  its  corner-stone.” 

When  Jackson  entered  the 

town  of  Frederick,  some  of  the 
Union  people,  frightened  at  his 
coming,  had  made  haste  to  pull 
down  the  stars  and  stripes.  There 
was  one  loyal  old  woman  named 
Barbara  Frietchie,  however,  who 
was  resolved  not  to  disgrace  her 

a  -  ,i  ,  ttti  ,i  Barbara  Frietchie, 

ag  m  that  way.  When  the 

steady  tread  of  the  soldiers  marched  down  the  street,  her  flag  floated 
from  an  attic  window.  But  John  G.  Whittier,  our  good  old  poet, 
tells  the  story  best.  I  will  give  it  to  you  in  his  words. 


“  Down  the  street  came  the  rebel  tread, 
Stonewall  Jackson  marching  ahead. 


STORY  OP  OUR  COUNTRY. 


502 


“  Under  liis  slouched  hat,  left  and  right 
He  glanced  ;  the  old  flag  met  his  sight. 

“  Halt  !  The  dust  brown  ranks  stood  fast. 
Fire  !  Out  blazed  the  rifle  blast. 


“  It  shivered  the  window,  pane  and  sash, 

It  rent  the  banner  with  seam  and  gash. 

“  Quick  as  it  fell  from  the  broken  staff, 

Dame  Barbara  snatched  the  silken  scarf. 

“  She  leaned  far  out  on  the  window-sill, 

And  shook  it  forth  with  a  royal  will. 

“  ‘  Shoot,  if  you  must,  this  old  gray  head, 

But  spare  your  country’s  flag,’  she  said.” 

It  is  not  often  that  treason  gets  so  wholesome  a  rebuke  as  it  got 
that  day  from  the  lips  of  this  gray -haired  old  woman. 

Discouraged  by  his  success  in  recruiting  in  Maryland,  Lee  began 
a  new  line  of  march.  Not  strong  enough  to  attack  Washington 

directly,  he  planned  .to  go  up 
into  Pennsylvania  and  draw 
McClellan  with  his  army  up  to 
the  defense  of  this  Northern 
State.  After  McClellan’s  ad¬ 
vance  had  uncovered  Washing¬ 
ton,  and  left  it  defenseless,  he 
would  go  back  and  possess  the 
national  seat  of  government. 

He  therefore  divided  his  army, 
and  sent  part  of  his  men  un¬ 
der  Stonewall  Jackson,  to  take 
Harper’s  Ferry,  — first  made  famous  by  John  Brown’s  raid, — 
while  he  went  west  through  Maryland  into  northern  "V  irginia,  and 
so  across  the  line  into  Pennsylvania.  It  was  very  evident  to  a  clever 
soldier,  that  Lee  never  would  have  divided  his  army  in  this  way, 
in  the  enemy’s  own  country,  if  he  had  any  very  great  fear  of  his 
antagonists.  But  so  far,  the  rebels  had  had  it  very  much  their  own 
way  in  the  Virginia  campaign.  They  had  beaten  two  armies  back 
behind  their  defenses  at  Washington,  and  Lee  was  getting  a  little 
reckless  from  success.  Back  he  marched  over  the  mountains,  in 


Barbara  Frietchie's  House. 


INVASION  OF  MARYLAND. 


503 


Western  Maryland,  down  which  his  army  had  moved  in  their  march 
to  Frederick.  There  were  two  passes,  called  Turner’s  Gap  and 
Crampton’s  Gap,  in  the  range  through  which  he  was  to  march  west¬ 
ward  ;  and  the  14tli  day  of  September  found  him  just  marching 
through  these  gaps,  to  the  other  side  of  South  Mountain.  Just 
beyond  was  the  Potomac,  dividing  Maryland  from  Virginia.  Once 
across  into  Virginia,  he  would  be  joined  by  Jackson,  who  would 
probably  by  that  time  have  taken  Harper’s  Ferry,  and  be  ready  to 
carry  his  victorious  banners  into  the  hated  State  of  Pennsylvania. 
And  then  what  might  not  his  armies  do  with  all  the  prestige  they 
had  gained  ?  Even  W ashington  might  be  disdained  as  too  easy  a 
prize.  They  might  march  to  New  York  city  itself,  —  reinforced  by 
more  soldiers,  who  could  pour  up  through  the  Shenandoah  Valley, 
after  Harper’s  Ferry  was  taken,  and  join  his  march.  It  had  been 
predicted  that  blood  should  flow  like  water  in  the  streets  of  the 
great  metropolis  of  our  nation,  that  grass  should  grow  on  the 
unused  paving-stones  of  Broadway,  after  its  commerce  had  been 
destroyed  by  waste  of  Southern  cotton.  While  from  Bunker  Hill* 
hallowed  in  the  eyes  of  Bostonians,  Robert  Tombs  had  boasted  he 
would  call  the  roll  of  his  slaves  in  the  ears  of  that  accursed  city  of 
abolitionists.  Many  hearts  in  the  domains  of  rebellion  beat  high 
with  hope  that  all  these  things  were  to  be  realized,  when  Lee 
marched,  in  that  pleasant  September  weather,  over  the  hills  of 
Maryland. 

In  the  mean  time,  McClellan  niade  haste  from  Washington,  with 
his  army  at  his  back,  when  the  news  came  that  Lee  was  at  Frederick. 
On  reaching  Frederick,  he  found  the  town  empty  of  the  invaders. 
But  he  found  there  a  slip  of  paper  which  an  impatient  rebel  gen¬ 
eral  had  thrown  under  his  feet  in  a  fit  of  ill-temper.  It  was  Lee’s 
private  order,  showing,  in  clearest  black  and  white,  his  whole  plan  of 
the  Pennsylvania  invasion. 

It  had  been  one  of  McClellan’s  faults  as  a  general  that  he  could 
not  make  haste,  to  do  anything,  and  this  had  lost  him  good  oppor¬ 
tunities  heretofore.  But  on  this  occasion  he  hurried.  He  followed 
on  Lee’s  track  as  fast  as  any  one  could  reasonably  suppose  so  large 
an  army  could  follow,  and  caught  up  with  him  just  as  Lee’s  troops 
were  ready  to  cross  through  the  two  mountain  gaps  into  the  valley 
beyond.  Here  McClellan  also  divided  his  army,  sending  General 
Burnside  to  Turner’s  Gap,  and  General  Franklin  to  Crampton’s 
Gap.  These  two  passes  were  only  a  few  miles  apart,  and  once 
passed,  the  army  was  but  six  miles  from  Harper’s  Ferry. 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY, 


504 

Nearly  all  clay  on  the  14th  of  September  there  was  a  hot  contest 
for  the  possession  of  these  mountain  passes,  the  rebels  in  their 
superior  position  holding  back  the  Union  army,  who  largely  out¬ 
numbered  them.  At  night  the  rebels  fell  back  beyond  the  mount¬ 
ain,  and  when  the  next  day  dawned,  McClellan  marched  through 
unimpeded,  except  by  the  dead  and  dying  bodies  which  Lee  had 
left  in  his  retreat.  When  the  Union  army  reached  the  valley  on 
the  morning  of  September  15th,  the  cessation  of  the  cannon  firing  in 
the  direction  of  Harper’s  Ferry  warned  McClellan  that  the  place 
had  been  surrendered.  In  a  few  hours  Jackson  would  be  on  the 
way  to  Lee’s' army.  The  struggle  was  near  at  hand. 

Both  armies  were  in  the  lovely  valley,  stretching  to  the  banks  of 
the  Potomac,  made  greenly  fertile  by  Antietam  Creek,  which  flowed 
into  the  Potomac  a  few  miles  south  of  the  place  where  Lee  halted. 


Harper’s  Ferry. 


The  rebel  commander  had  crossed  this  creek,  and  with  that  stream 
in  front,  and  the  Potomac  behind  him,  he  waited  for  Jackson  to 
come  to  his  aid,  and  McClellan  to  give  him  battle.  One  end  of 
his  line,  was  in  the  town  of  Sharpsburg,  his  centre  ran  through  a 
rough  field  where  ledges  of  lime  rock  made  convenient  lurking 
places  for  sharp-shooters lines  of  timber  in  the  rear  of  his  army 


INVASION  OF  MARYLAND.  505 

furnished  good  cover  for  batteries,  stationed  there  to  sweep  his  ap¬ 
proaching  foes. 

Harper's  Ferry  had  surrendered  to  Stonewall  Jackson  on  that  very 
morning.  Without  a  moment's  delay  this  energetic  commander 
left  a  small  force  to  take  charge  of  the  town,  and  all  the  wealth  of 
cannon  and  other  valuables  of  war  that  had  been  captured  there, 
and  pushed  on  at  once  to  Antietam  Creek. 

Three  bridges  spanned  this  creek  in  front  of  Lee’s  army.  The 
upper  bridge  had  been  left  unguarded  and  open.  Across  this  the 
corps  of  “fighting  Joe  Hooker”  was  sent  on  the  16th,  prepared  to 
strike  a  heavy  blow  on  the  left  of  the  rebel  lines.  On  the  night  of 
the  16tli  the  two  armies  lay  down  to  sleep  with  the  knowledge  that 
the  inevitable  battle  must  begin  next  morning.  I  wonder  if  those 
who  slumbered  there  in  their  last  earthly  slumber  felt  the  shadow 
of  the  approaching  conflict  more  deeply  than  those  who  were  to 
escape  the  bullet  or  cannon  ball  next  day. 


Antietam  Battle-field. 


Morning  dawned  upon  the  battle-field  of  Antietam,  and  the  first 
streakings  of  light  in  the  east  were  hailed  by  the  roar  of  the  guns. 
From  dawn  till  dusk  the  two  armies  fought  in  bloody  and  uncertain 
fight.  For  an  advantage  gained  on  one  side  of  the  field  by  the 


506 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


national  soldiers,  Lee  could  show  an  equal  advantage  in  another 
quarter.  When  the  sun  set,  neither  side  could  claim  the  victory, 
and  the  night  saw  both  armies  standing  at  bay,  like  two  wild  beasts 
who  have  tasted  the  blood  from  their  own  wounds,  and  are  all  the 
more  eager  to  pursue  the  fight.  But  night  cooled  the  ardor  of 
both  generals.  Lee  was  not  ready  to  give  battle,  and  McClellan, 
who  from  excess  of  caution  could  rarely  follow  up  an  advantage 
with  rapidity,  waited  for  more  troops.  The  18th  passed  without  a 
fight,  and  on  the  night  of  that  day  Lee  made  good  his  escape  over 
the  Potomac.  His  army  was  broken  up;  his  plans  of  campaign 
spoiled.  He  concluded  not  to  go  to  Pennsylvania.  From  this  time 
the  hopes  of  those  who  longed  to  see  Washington  under  the  feet 
of  the  rebels,  New  York  city  drenched  in  blood,  and  Boston  clothed 
in  sackcloth,  were  forever  dampened.  However  costly  in  human 
lives  had  been  the  battle-field  of  Antietam,  it  had  gained  for  the 
North  a  sense  of  security  it  had  not  felt  since  the  campaign  in 
Virginia  had  begun. 

Lee  remained  in  the  Shenandoah  Valley.  To  revenge  himself  for 
his  disappointment  in  not  reaching  Pennsylvania,  he  sent  General 
Stuart  with  a  troop  of  horsemen  12,000  or  15,000  strong  to  ravage 
the  borders  of  Pennsylvania.  Stuart  did  this  with  great  alacity,  go¬ 
ing  as  far  into  the  State  as  Chambersburg,  burning  national  works, 
tearing  up  railroads,  and  laying  waste  the  country. 

For  several  weeks  McClellan  remained  near  Harper’s  Ferry  — 
which  was  at  once  retaken  and  occupied  by  our  troops  —  calling  for 
wagons,  horses,  clothing,  shoes,  and  other  goods  for  his  army.  In 
return  General-in-chief  Ilalleck  and  President  Lincoln  were  con¬ 
stantly  ordering  him  to  march  against  the  enemy.  He  was  so  long 
in  obeying  these  orders  that  his  superiors  got  impatient,  and  on  the 
7th  of  November  an  order  reached  his  camp  giving  over  his  com¬ 
mand  to  General  Ambrose  Burnside,  who  already  commanded  a 
corps  in  his  army.  It  was  the  same  general  who  had  led  the 
troops  into  North  Carolina  and  taken  Newbern  the  previous  March. 

The  order  reached  McClellan  as  the  two  generals  were  sitting 
together  in  camp.  McClellan  read  it  without  any  perceptible  emo¬ 
tion,  and  handing  it  over  to  Burnside  said  calmly,  “  Well,  general, 
you  are  to  try  your  hand  at  managing  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  !  ” 
So  passed  into  obscurity  one  of  the  most  notable  generals  of  the 
war,  a  man  better  capable  of  drilling  and  setting  an  army  in  the 
field,  than  almost  any  other  commander  among  the  Union  generals,, 


INVASION  OF  MARYLAND. 


507 


but  so  hampered  by  an  excess  of  caution,  often  resembling  timidity, 
that  his  well  drilled  and  disciplined  armies  wasted  in  inaction.  He 
lost  more  men  by  disease  than  by  battle,  and  the  months  on  the 
Peninsula  were  deadlier  than  all  his  defeats  on  the  field. 

Burnside,  a  modest,  unassuming,  brave  soldier,  took  the  command 
with  a  great  deal  of  distrust  in  his  ability  to  manage  sO  large  a 
force.  Lee  was  now  encamped  on  the  Rappahannock  River  near 
Fredericksburg,  Virginia,  prepared  to  contest  any  attempt  of  our 
army  to  go  on  to  Richmond.  Burnside  prepared  to  go  on  and  oc¬ 
cupy  Fredericksburg,  and  make  the  town  his  winter  head-quarters. 
But  before  he  could  reach  it,  it  was  so  fortified  by  Lee  that  a  fight 
for  the  place  was  inevitable.  Our  soldiers  did  wonders  of  work  in 
preparing  bridges  of  boats  to  cross  the  river,  and  building  railway 


Ruins  of  Fredericksburg. 


bridges  over  which  loaded  trains  could  pass.  At  length,  on  the  11th 
of  December,  the  attack  on  Fredericksburg  began.  It  raged  hotly 
till  the  night  of  the  13th.  When  it  was  over  the  streets  of  the  town 
were  filled  with  smoking  ruins ;  walls  of  houses  tottering  to  their 
fall,  and  black  destruction  everywhere.  But  Lee  still  held  the 
place,  and  Burnside,  driven  up  the  river,  waited  another  opportu¬ 
nity.  His  generals  had  lost  confidence  in  him,  however,  and  he  did 
not  attempt  another  battle.  The  last  of  December  he  led  his  army 
back  to  the  old  camps  which  it  had  occupied  before  the  battle  of 
Fredericksburg.  There  the  men  built  mud  huts  and  sat  down  to 


608 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


spend  the  winter.  The  Union  army  was  dispirited  and  despondent. 
The  rebels  were  exultant  and  self-confident.  The  poorest  judge  of 
military  matters  saw  that  the  campaign  in  Virginia  was  a  dark  one 
to  the  Union  cause.  With  the  exception  of  Lee’s  repulse  from 
Maryland,  and  the  spoiling  of  his  plans  about  the  Pennsylvania  in¬ 
vasion,  we  had  no  success  there  during  the  year  1862. 


CHAPTER  XLIV. 

AFFAIRS  IN  THE  WEST. 

Generals  Bragg,  Polk,  and  Hardee.  —  The  Queen  City  threatened.  —  Southern  Rhetoric.  — 
Armor  of  the  Southern  Soldiers.  —  Rebel  Spoils  in  Kentucky.  —  Battle  of  Corinth.  —  Christ¬ 
mas  Jollity  at  Murfreesboro’. — Rosecrans  marches  on  the  Revelers.  —  “We  fight,  or  die 
here.”  — Victory  for  Unionists. 

In  the  mean  time  the  armies  of  the  West  were  not  altogether  idle. 
We  left  the  rebels  down  in  Tupelo,  Mississippi,  where  Beauregard 
had  marched  them  when  he  gave  up  Corinth.  General  Bragg  was 
in  Beauregard’s  place  at  the  head  of  the  rebel  army.  Bragg  was 
now  a  grizzled  old  man,  stooped  shouldered,  and  angular.  A  pair 
of  sharp  eyes  under  a  thick  brush  of  black  eyebrows,  were  all  that 
denoted  the  fiery  soldier  to  whom  Taylor  had  shouted  at  Buena 
Vista,  “  A  little  more  grape,  Captain  Bragg.” 

Bragg  first  moved  his  army  to  Chattanooga  in  Georgia,  which  the 
Union  army  showed  signs  of  occupying.  Then,  when  he  saw  Bu¬ 
ell’s  men  all  at  work  repairing  railroads,  and  intent  on  marching 
slowly  towards  Georgia,  he  cut  round  behind  them,  and  made  a 
swift  march  into  Kentucky.  His  army  was  in  three  parts ;  one  com¬ 
manded  by  Bishop  Polk,  who  was  a  good  fighter,  whatever  he  may 
have  been  as  a  clergyman.  He  owned  seven  hundred  slaves,  it  is 
said,  which  was  an  excellent  reason  for  taking  up  his  sword  in  aid 
of  the  rebellion.  Another  part  of  Bragg’s  army  was  under  General 
Hardee,  who  had  written  some  good  military  works.  He  had  been 
educated  at  West  Point  at  the  expense  of  his  country,  which  was 
not  a  good  reason  for  deserting  her  and  taking  up  arms  with  her 
enemies.  Bragg’s  third  division,  under  Kirby  Smith,  another  West 
Point  graduate,  was  sent  ahead  to  northern  Tennessee,  while  Bragg 
began  operations  in  Kentucky.  It  was  in  early  September,  the  same 
month  of  Lee’s  invasion  into  Maryland,  when  Bragg  ravaged  Ken¬ 
tucky.  For  about  six  weeks  he  had  it  pretty  much  all  to  himself 


AFFAIRS  IN  THE  WEST. 


509 


there.  Grant  was  occupying  northern  Mississippi  near  Corinth,  and 
Buell,  who  thought  Bragg  might  be  coming  to  retake  Nashville,  hur¬ 
ried  to  defend  that  town,  and  keep  fast  hold  of  the  railway  between 
Nashville  and  Louisville,  down  which  came  the  bread,  and  meat,  and 
clothing  for  his  men. 

But  Bragg,  creeping  all  the  time  in  a  wide  circle  to  the  east,  ap¬ 
proached  Louisville.  Kirby  Smith  meanwhile  was  nearing  Bragg. 
On  his  way  he  defeated  the  Union  troops  at  Richmond,  entered 
Frankfort,  the  capital  of  Kentucky,  and  then  marched  on  to  the  bor¬ 
ders  to  threaten  the  city  of  Cincinnati.  The  inhabitants  of  the 
“  Queen  city”  were  badly  frightened,  and  if  General  Lew.  Wallace 
had  not  been  in  town  to  organize  means  for  defending  it,  there  might 
have  been  a  terrible  panic.  But  General  Wallace  established  mili¬ 
tary  order  there.  In  one  day  a  pontoon  bridge  was  built  across  the 
Ohio,  over  which  troops  for  the  city’s  defense  poured  into  her 
streets.  So  thorough  were  the  preparations,  that  when  Kirby  Smith 
reached  the  Ohio,  he  at  once  fell  back  under  the  friendly  cover  of 
darkness,  and  a  tremendous  thunder-storm,  and  went  to  join  Bragg 
at  Frankfort. 

On  the  14tli  of  September  Bragg  captured  Mumfordsville,  a  place 
south  of  Louisville,  where  the  Union  army  had  very  large  supplies  of 
food  and  clothing.  All  looked  bright  for  the  rebels,  and  they  had 
hopes  of  soon  marching  to  Louisville,  and  so  cutting  off  the  railway 
between  that  place  and  Buell's  troops. 

Here  General  Bragg  sent  out  a  proclamation  to  the  Kentucky 
people,  which  is  such  a  very  good  specimen  of  what  we  have  learned 
to  distinguish  as  “  Southern  rhetoric,”  that  I  must  quote  a  little  of 
it  for  you. 

“  Kentuckians  !  ”  says  Bragg,  “  we  have  come  with  joyous  hopes. 
Let  us  not  depart  in  sorrow,  as  we  shall,  if  we  find  you  wedded  in 
your  choice  to  your  present  lot.  If  you  prefer  Federal  rule,  show 
it  by  your  frowns,  and  we  will  return  whence  we  came.  If  you 
choose  rather  to  come  within  the  folds  of  our  brotherhood,  then 
cheer  us  with  the  smiles  of  your  women,  and  lend  your  willing  hands 
to  secure  you  in  your  heritage  of  liberty. 

“Women  of  Kentucky!  Let  your  enthusiasm  have  free  rein. 
Buckle  on  the  armor  of  your  kindred,  your  husbands,  sons,  and  broth¬ 
ers,  and  scoff  with  shame  him  who  would  prove  recreant  to  his  duty 
to  you,  his  country,  and  his  God.” 

The  appeal  to  “  buckle  on  armor,”  is  a  figure  of  speech  of  the 


510 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


kind  in  which  “  Southern  rhetoric  ”  is  rich.  At  that  moment  the 
armor  of  the  Southern  soldier  consisted  of  a  shirt  of  yellowish  jean, 
such  as  slaves  had  worn,  and  a  coat  of  rusty  gray.  The  lack  of 
coats  was  often  supplied  by  tattered  bed-quilts,  old  pieces  of  carpet, 
and  such  other  rags  as  the  poor  private  could  muster.  Not  that 
these  are  causes  for  which  to  despise  them.  It  rather  makes  us  sorry 
that  men  who  could  fight  in  such  ragged  plight,  had  not  a  better 
cause  than  the  destruction  of  the  country  that  gave  them  birth,  and 
the  continuance  of  human  slavery. 

But  Buell  was  at  last  upon  his  feet  in  pursuit  of  Bragg.  They 
both  hurried  to  take  Louisville.  Buell  won  the  race,  and  got  there 
in  time  to  force  Bragg  to  fall  back  southward.  The  rebel  general 
had  loaded  himself  with  the  riches  of  Kentucky.  Her  factories  and 
warehouses  were  robbed  of  cloths,  shoes,  and  all  kinds  of  clothing 
materials.  Barrels  of  bacon,  pork,  biscuit,  flour,  filled  the  wagon- 
trains  in  his  march.  The  splendid  horses  of  Kentucky  curveted  in 
the  ranks  of  his  cavalry,  and  day  after  day,  car-load  after  car-load 
was  sent  South,  carrying  away  the  goods  which  had  been  taken  from 
the  State.  For  some  of  these  goods  the  rebel  general  professed  to 
pay  in  “  Confederate  bills,’'  a  worthless  paper  printed  to  resemble 
our  bank-notes,  by  which  they  strove  to  keep  the  fiction  of  a  gov¬ 
ernment  alive. 

Bragg  halted  at  the  town  of  Perry ville.  Buell  sent  the  central 
division  of  his  army  to  drive  him  thence,  and  all  day,  on  the  8th  of 
October,  a  hard  battle  was  fought.  The  Unionists  met  with  great 
slaughter,  and  lost  many  guns.  At  night,  however,  Bragg  retreated 
toward  East  Tennessee,  leaving  the  Unionist  to  hold  the  worthless 
town  of  Perryville.  Dissatisfied  with  General  Buell’s  management, 
the  government  sent  a  dispatch  to  General  Rosecrans  in  Grant’s 
command,  to  come  and  take  Buell's  command  over  the  Army  of  the 
Ohio. 

Rosecrans  had  first  come  into  notice  in  the  mountains  of  West 
Virginia  in  1861,  when  he  had  been  one  of  the  most  efficient  in 
routing  the  enemy  across  the  mountains  beyond  the  Shenandoah. 
Now  he  was  in  Grant’s  army,  and  had  been  for  several  months  in 
Mississippi  and  Alabama,  doing  good  work  there.  On  the  19th  of 
September,  he  had  attacked  Sterling  Price,  and  driven  him  from  the 
village  of  Iuka,  after  a  hard  day’s  fight.  When  the  day  was  over 
each  side  was  uncertain  which  had  been  beaten,  but  during  the 
night  Price  retreated  to  join  Earl  Van  Dorn,  and  Rosecrans  retired 
behind  the  strong  works  at  Corinth. 


AFFAIRS  IN  THE  WEST. 


511 


About  the  1st  of  October  news  came  that  Price  and  Van  Dorn 
were  on  the  inarch  toward  Corinth.  Rosecrans  was  uncertain 
whether  they  meant  to  attack  him,  but  made  all  his  preparations  to 
give  them  a  warm  welcome  in  the  event  of  a  battle. 

On  the  morning  of  the  3d  of  October  the  attack  began  on  the  row 
of  outer  works  built  around  Corinth.  The  rebels,  who,  whatever 
their  faults,  were  never  to  be  despised  as  enemies,  made  a  terrible 
attack,  coming  on  in  the  pelting  fire  from  the  fortifications  as  if  they 
were  men  of  stone.  Where  the  batteries  made  gaps  in  their  ranks, 
they  were  filled  up  as  coming  waves  fill  up  the  troughs  of  the  sea. 
“  Some  of  the  men  bent  their  necks  downward  and  marched  steadily 
to  death,  with  their  faces  averted,  like  men  striving  to  protect 
themselves  from  a  driving  storm  of  hail,”  says  one  who  saw  the 
advance.  At  night  the  rebels  slept  on  their  arms,  expecting  next 
day  the  town  would  yield,  and  Price  in  his  tent  dictated  a  dispatch 
to  Richmond,  announcing  a  “  glorious  victory.” 

At  three  o’clock  next  morning  the  battle  began  again.  Parties  of 
men,  some  of  them  contrabands,  had  worked  all  night  strengthening 
the  works  and  building  new  ones.  On  the  rebel  side  guns  had 
been  leveled  against  the  town,  and  bombs  fell  in  the  very  streets  of 
Corinth.  There  was  a  wild  rebel  charge  upon  the  new  fortifications. 
For  a  little  the  Unionists  fall  back.  Then  silently  they  closed  round 
the  attacking  rebels,  beat  them  back,  and  their  yells  of  battle 
changed  into  roars  of  rage  and  defeat  as  they  were  driven  into  the 
forests  around  Corinth.  The  “rebel  yell”  was  heard  always  on 
entering  battle,  and  an  unearthly  yell  it  was,  enough  to  shake  stout 
nerves.  “  Our  men  do  not  often  shout  before  battle,”  says  a  looker- 
on  at  Corinth.  “  Heavens !  what  thunder  there  is  in  their  throats 
after  victory.” 

Into  the  woods  they  pursued  the  rebels.  The  way  was  marked  by 
dead  and  dying,  broken  tree  branches,  gouts  of  human  gore,  shat¬ 
tered  guns,  and  broken  bayonets.  The  day  was  over,  and  Corinth 
was  still  safe.  In  the  flush  of  this  victory  came  the  word  to  Rose¬ 
crans  to  go  to  Kentucky  and  take  command  of  Buell’s  army,  now  to 
be  new  baptized  as  the  “  Army  of  the  Cumberland.” 

When  Rosecrans  joined  his  new  army  he  found  it  in  the  condition 
of  all  bodies  of  men  who  have  fought  a  discouraging  campaign,  and 
had  a  change  of  generals.  There  was  much  to  do  to  bring  it  into 
order,  and  the  whole  country  was  loudly  calling  on  the  “  Army  of 
the  Cumberland  ”  to  drive  the  rebels  from  Kentucky.  Bragg  had 
33 


512 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


settled  down  at  Murfreesboro’,  southeast  of  Nashville,  and  was  having 
a  very  good  time  there.  There  were  parties  and  balls,  card  playing, 
and  tea  drinkings,  and  general  jollity  in  the  town  of  Murfreesboro’. 
Jefferson  Davis  was  there  paying  a  visit  to  his  favorite  general. 
The  famous  guerrilla  chief,  Morgan,  who  had  probably  burned  and 
desolated  more  homes  than  any  leader  of  a  semi-civilized  horde  of 
banditti,  was  here,  celebrating  his  marriage  festivities.  Bishop  Polk 
had  laid  aside  his  sword,  and  donned  his  disused  surplice  to  marry 
him,  and  they  had  a  gay  wedding  with  much  wine  drinking  and 
speech  making.  One  would  have  said  that  Bragg  held  Kentucky 
grappled  with  hooks  of  steel  to  the  cause  for  which  he  was  fighting. 

All  the  time  Rosecrans  was  busy  repairing  the  railway  torn  up 
between  Nashville  and  Louisville,  so  that  his  supplies  could  come 
from  the  North  in  safety.  He  was  too  wise  to  risk  being  cut  off  from 
his  food  by  a  hostile  army,  and  therefore,  while  the  rebels  were  fid¬ 
dling  in  Murfreesboro’,  he  was  steadily  piling  up  two  months’  pro¬ 
visions  in  the  store-houses  of  Nashville.  When  that  was  all  done  he 
was  ready  to  dislodge  Bragg  from  his  "winter -quarters. 

It  was  the  26tli  of  December  when  the  march  began.  Christ¬ 
mas  was  just  over,  and  the  “  boys  in  blue  ”  had  eaten  their  Christ¬ 
mas  dinners  in  Nashville.  Many  of  them,  I  have  no  doubt,  re¬ 
membering  with  aching  hearts  the  family  circle  at  home  where 
their  seats  were  empty.  Such  remembrances  do  not  make  the 
soldier  less  brave.  Indeed,  I  believe  those  to  whom  home  was  the 
dearest  memory,  fought  best  for  their  country. 

The  morning  of  the  last  day  of  the  year  found  our  army  in 
front  of  Murfreesboro’,  ready  for  battle.  The  rebels  were  on  a 
stream  known  as  Stone  River,  on  which  lay  the  town.  On  one  side 
of  the  river  lay  the  division  under  John  C.  Breckenridge,  the  man 
who  had  been  one  of  the  candidates  for  president  against  Abraham 
Lincoln.  On  the  other  side,  with  his  face  toward  Rosecrans,  was 
Bragg,  with  the  main  part  of  his  army.  The  rebels  numbered 
35,000.  The  Unionists,  47,000.  That  sounds  like  a  great  dis¬ 
parity,  but  Bragg  knew  the  ground  best,  and  it  takes  more  men  to 
attack  than  to  defend  a  field. 

I  am  tired  of  battles,  and  I  think  you  must  be,  so  we  will  not 
dwell  longer  than  we  can  help  on  this  battle  of  Murfreesboro’.  I 
will  only  tell  you  that  on  the  right  of  our  army,  after  it  had  been 
driven  back  and  almost  beaten,  a  gallant  general,  named  Phil. 
Sheridan,  held  an  overmastering  force  for  three  hours  at  bay,  leav- 


AFFAIRS  IN  THE  WEST. 


513 


ing  at  last  1,700  men  on  the  field,  and  joining  Rosecrans  with  the 
words,  “  Here  we  are,  all  that  is  left  of  us.”  How  Colonel  Hazen, 
with  1,300  men,  fought  on  the  left,  against  odds  such  as  Sher¬ 
idan  had  held  out  against.  How  Rosecrans,  as  cool  as  if  there 
were  no  roar  of  guns,  galloped  from  one  part  of  the  field  to  another, 
insensible  to  bullets,  and  only  intent  on  gaining  the  day.  For  all 
accounts  of  death  or  disaster,  he  had  only  one  answer,  “We  must 
win  this  fight.” 

Night  settled  down  on  a  drawn  battle.  Neither  army  would 
admit  a  defeat,  neither  could  claim  a  victory.  That  night  in  his 
tent  General  Rosecrans  made  one  short  speech  to  his  officers. 
“  Gentlemen,  we  fight,  or  die  right  here.”  Through  the  first  day 


Mules  carrying  Wounded  Men. 


of  the  new  year,  both  armies  stood  at  bay.  Another  day  dawned, 
and  until  almost  twilight  the  same  inaction  prevailed.  But  at 
three  P.  M.  an  attack  was  begun  by  Breckenridge,  which  at  first 
seemed  successful.  Just  as  the  Union  troops  on  one  side  our  lines 
were  wavering,  fresh  troops  were  sent  to  support  them.  Brecken¬ 
ridge  retreated  under  a  terrible  fire  from  our  artillery.  In  half  an 
hour  he  lost  2,000  men. 

It  was  the  last  attack  of  the  battle.  Next  day  Bragg  retired 
from  Murfreesboro’,  leaving  the  field  to  our  army.  Again  the  coun¬ 
try  rang  with  the  praises  of  new  heroes  who  had  won  laurels  at 
the  battle  of  Murfreesboro’. 


514 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


CHAPTER  XLV. 

EMANCIPATION. 

The  Day  of  Jubilee.  — Sambo  in  the  Union  Lines.  —  The  Loyal  Chattel.  — Lincoln  on  the 
Union  and  Slavery. — His  Solemn  Vow. — The  Emancipation  Proclamation. — Prejudice 
against  Negro  Soldiers. 

There  are  certain  anniversaries  which  ought  to  he  sacred  to  every 
American  citizen.  I  need  not  tell  you  that  we  all  should  honor  the 
Fourth  of  July,  the  day  on  which  this  nation  was  born.  I  hope  and 
believe  the  day  is  fast  coining  when  every  patriotic  American  will 
revere  equally  the  first  day  of  January,  1863.  On  that  day  the 
bondmen  and  bondwomen  of  the  United  States  were  proclaimed  free 
men  and  women.  Slavery,  which  had  been  a  shame  and  reproach 
to  this  country  among  all  the  civilized  nations,  was  abolished,  and 
we  were  able  to  say  of  America,  as  one  of  her  poets  had  said  of 
England,  — 

“  Slaves  cannot  breathe  in  Eno-land  :  if  their  luno-s 

O  >  O 

Receive  our  air,  that  moment  they  are  free  ; 

They  touch  our  country  and  their  shackles  fall.” 

The  war  did  not  at  first  make  much  difference  in  the  opinion  of 
the  North  about  slavery.  The  people  said,  this  is  a  “  War  for  the 
Union,”  and  went  into  it  with  little  consideration  for  the  negro. 
But  it  was  very  soon  found  that  the  negro  kept  getting  in  the  way. 
When  General  Butler  found  them  set  to  work  by  their  masters, 
near  Fortress  Monroe,  digging  fortifications  to  keep  out  our  armies, 
he  decided  they  were  “  contraband  ”  as  much  as  corn  or  cotton. 
When  Fremont  saw  that  the  masters  in  Missouri  were  disloyal,  and 
that  their  slaves  were  loyal,  he  pronounced  the  loyal  men  free  men. 
But  when  Halleck  took  Fremont's  place,  he  changed  all  this,  ordered 
the  negroes  to  take  themselves  off,  and  allowed  the  masters  to  come 
and  take  away  their  escaping  slaves. 

There  was,  of  course,  a  great  difference  of  feeling  among  army 
officers,  about  slavery.  When  the  rebel  masters  came  to  the  Union 
camp,  asking  if  their  “  boy  Jim,”  “  Sambo,”  or  “  Pompey  ”  was 
within  our  lines,  and  requesting  permission  to  look  for  him  there, 
some  of  the  officers  politely  escorted  the  slave-owner  through  the 
camp,  offering  every  assistance  to  find  the  poor,  half-starved  wretch, 
who  had  come  to  the  Union  lines,  believing  that  Freedom  traveled 
along  with  its  banners.  In  Missouri,  during  the  war,  some  bright, 


EMANCIPATION. 


515 


wide-awake  negroes  brought  to  o.ur  camp  valuable  news  of  the 
enemy’s  movements.  A  little  later  the  owner  of  these  men  came  to 
demand  that  they  should  be  returned  to  him.  The  slaves,  perhaps 
warned  of  the  coming  of  the  master,  had  already  fled.  Well,  how 
did  the  Union  officer  treat  the  disloyal  master  claiming  to  own  these 
men,  who  had  given  proof  of  their  devotion  to  this  country  ?  They 
mounted  their  horses  and  went  off  with  the  master  to  hunt  down 
the  slaves,  and  in  taking  them,  one  of  the  Union  officers  shot  the 
slave  who  had  so  well  earned  his  right  to  be  a  free  man  under  the 
flag  he  had  served.  On  the  other  hand  there  were  officers  who,  in 
spite  of  orders  admitting  owners  into  the  lines  to  take  away  their 
“  chattels,”  said,  “  No  !  I  did  not  come  here  to  be  a  slave-liunter. 
No  man  shall  enter  my  camp  for  that  purpose.  The  enemies  of  my 
country  are  my  enemies.  Its  friends,  black  or  white,  are  my 
friends !  ” 

The  soldiers,  a  very  large  part  of  them,  went  into  the  war  op¬ 
posed  to  “  fighting  a  war  for  the  negroes.”  They  fought  for  the 
Union,  and  wanted  to  let  slavery  alone.  But  when,  month  after 
month,  they  saw  the  negro,  loyal  through  all  discouragement  and 
repulse,  welcoming  everywhere  the  march  of  our  army ;  when  they 
heard  the  stories  told  by  the  slaves  at  camp-fires,  where  they  sought 
shelter  •  when  the)'  found  that  wherever  the  hand  of  the  white  was 
raised  to  strike  and  curse  them,  the  hand  of  the  black  was  out¬ 
stretched  in  help  and  blessing,  the  soldiers  began  to  change  their 
minds  on  the  subject.  There  were  more  men  who  became  “  Aboli¬ 
tionists  ”  in  the  United  States  army  during  the  two  first  years  of 
the  war,  than  all  the  numbers  put  together  who  had  joined  that 
little  party  under  William  Lloyd  Garrison's  noble  teachings. 

Poor  Mr.  Lincoln  in  the  White  House  at  Washington,  his  sad 
eyes  every  day  growing  sadder  as  he  carried  the  heavy  load  of 
duties  his  office  brought  him,  was  always  very  much  troubled  by 
the  slavery  question.  In  his  heart  he  hated  slavery,  believed  it 
a  sin,  and  had  believed  so  from  boyhood.  But  he  believed  him¬ 
self  a  servant  of  the  great  people,  put  into  his  place  to  obey  their 
bidding.  It  was  his  duty  to  save  the  nation’s  life,  and  bring  her 
out  from  her  great  danger  ;  .  not  to  touch  slavery  unless  her  safety 
demanded  it.  He  said  :  — 

“My  paramount  object  is  to  save  the  Union,  and  not  either  to  save 
or  destroy  slavery.  If  I  could  save  the  Union  without  freeing  any 
slave,  I  would  do  it.  If  I  could  save  it  by  freeing  all  the  slaves,  I 


516 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


would  do  it ;  and  if  I  could  do  it  by  freeing  some  and  leaving  others 
alone,  I  would  also  do  that.  What  I  do  about  slavery  and  the  col¬ 
ored  race,  I  do  because  I  believe  it  helps  to  save  this  Union  ;  and 
what  I  forbear,  I  forbear  because  I  do  not  believe  it  would  help  to 
save  this  Union.” 

Of  course  he  was  assailed  on  both  sides.  Bodies  of  men  waited 
on  him,  begging  him  not  to  touch  slavery.  If  he  did  so  he  would 
lose  the  sympathy  of  thousands  in  the  border  States  who  held  slaves, 
and  yet  had  clung  to  the  Union.  Other  bodies  of  men  waited  on 
him,  begging  him  to  emancipate  the  slaves  ;  telling  him  that  the 
sympathies  of  all  foreign  nations  would  be  with  us  if  we  only  showed 
that  we  warred  against  slavery ;  declaring  that  the  back-bone  of 
rebellion  would  be  broken  if  slavery  were  destroyed. 

Between  them  both  Lincoln  stood,  often  solely  tried  and  per¬ 
plexed  in  the  extreme.  At  length,  in  August,  1862,  he  called  to¬ 
gether  his  cabinet,  and  showed  them  a  copy  of  a  proclamation  free¬ 
ing  all  slaves  of  rebel  owners.  His  secretary  of  state,  Willliam  H. 
Seward,  a  thoughtful  statesman,  and  long  known  as  an  antislavery 
man,  begged  him  to  wait  a  little.  “  We  are  in  dark  days  now,” 
said  Seward,  “  and  this  will  look  like  a  last  measure,  a  cry  to 
Ethiopia  for  help.”  So  Mr.  Lincoln  put  aside  the  paper.  Shortly 
after  came  Pope’s  repulses  in  Virginia.  Things  looked  darker  and 
darker.  Then  the  battle  at  Antietam  drew  near.  “  I  made  a  sol¬ 
emn  vow  before  God,”  said  the  president,  talking  of  it  afterwards, 
“  that  if  General  Lee  was  driven  back  from  Maryland,  I  would 
crown  the  act  by  the  declaration  of  freedom  to  the  slaves.” 

Many  vows  of  most  solemn  import  have  been  offered  up  to  the 
Almighty,  but  there  are  few  in  all  history  with  so  great  a  result  as 
that  which  gave  freedom  to  a  race. 

Therefore,  on  the  1st  of  January,  1863,  President  Lincoln  an¬ 
nounced  to  the  nation,  and  to  those  in  arms  against  it,  that  all  the 
slaves  of  those  at  war  against  the  government  were  thenceforth 
free.  The  rebels  became  bitterer  than  ever,  and  declared  this 
last  blow  at  their  rights  and  their  property  had  made  it  impossible 
for  them  ever  to  yield.  They  would  die  to  the  last  man.  Many  in 
the  North  loudly  denounced  Lincoln’s  Emancipation  Proclamation. 
But  in  truth,  almost  every  man  in  the  United  States  whose  heart 
was  in  the  restoration  of  the  Union,  believed  that  the  right  thing 
had  been  done,  and  that  now,  for  the  first  time,  the  God  who  parted 
the  waters  of  the  Red  Sea  that  a  race  of  bondmen  might  walk 
through  to  freedom,  was  ready  to  smile  on  our  nation’s  cause. 


SIEGE  OF  VICKSBURG. 


517 


From  tlie  beginning,  negroes  had  been  employed  by  the  rebels  to 
work  on  their  fortifications,  and  dig  in  their  trenches.  As  the  prej¬ 
udice  against  using  them  began  to  melt  away  in  our  armies,  spades 
were  put  into  their  hands,  and  they  were  employed  in  our  lines.  In 
the  summer  of  1862  negro  soldiers  were  talked  of,  and  Congress 
passed  a  law  the  next  spring,  permitting  the  raising  of  black  regi¬ 
ments.  Massachusetts  gave  the  first  colored  regiment  to  the  coun¬ 
try.  It  was  known  as  the  Fifty-fourth  Massachusetts,  and  its 
colonel,  Robert  G.  Shaw,  was  descended  from  a  noble  line  of  anti¬ 
slavery  ancestors. 

This  regiment,  the  first  to  shed  its  blood  in  the  struggle  which 
gave  freedom  to  their  race,  was  not  permitted  to  pass  through  the 
city  of  New  York,  on  their  way  to  the  seat  of  war.  It  was  danger¬ 
ous  even  then,  in  the  metropolis  of  the  nation,  for  a  black  man  to 
wear  the  free  garb  of  the  soldier.  The  troops  were  therefore  sent 
from  Boston  by  water  in  May,  1863.  But  only  a  few  months  later, 
a  negro  regiment  passed  down  Broadway,  New  York  city,  cheered 
by  thousands,  who  came  out  to  see  them  march.  So  rapid  were  the 
strides  made  by  public  opinion  in  the  four  years  of  the  war,  that 
only  the  seven-league  boots  of  a  Brobdignagian  giant  could  keep 
up  with  it. 


CHAPTER  XLYI. 

SIEGE  OF  VICKSBURG. 

Western  Men.  —  Surroundings  of  Vicksburg.  —  Digging  a  Canal  again.  —  Running  the  Bat¬ 
teries.  —  Grant’s  Baggage.  —  The  Assaults.  — Bombardment.  —  Surrender.  —  Port  Hudson. 

—  The  Mississippi  flows  unvexed  to  the  Sea. 

The  armies  under  Grant’s  command  were  largely  made  up  of 
Western  men,  —  the  men  of  Iowa,  Wisconsin,  Illinois,  Indiana. 
These  men  felt  that  the  Mississippi  River  belonged  to  them.  To 
shut  it  up  with  hostile  batteries,  to  divide  it  by  stretching  across  it 
the  boundary  of  a  foreign  nation,  and  so  cut  them  off  from  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico,  these  men  of  the  Northwest  felt  would  be  an  unendura¬ 
ble  injury.  They  were  prepared  to  fight  for  their  river  till  their 
blood  flowed  to  the  Gulf  as  freely  as  its  waters.  So  while  the  East 
clamored,  “  On  to  Richmond,”  the  West  cried,  “  On  to  Vicksburg 
and  New  Orleans.” 

You  have  not  forgotten  how  the  glorious  work  of  Farragut  and 


518 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


Butler  gave  us  New  Orleans  in  1862.  By  that  victory  we  held 
firmly  the  great  mouths  of  the  Mississippi.  And  by  the  conquests 

of  Island  No.  10  and  Fort  Pil¬ 


low  we  held  the  river  from  its 
source  to  Memphis.  The  only 
places  that  opposed  the  passage 
of  our  boats  from  New  Or¬ 
leans  to  the  Falls  of  St.  An- 
J  thony,  were  Vicksburg,  Mis¬ 
sissippi,  and  Port  Hudson, 
Louisiana,  one  hundred  and 
fifty  miles  up  the  river  from 
New  Orleans.  Take  these,  and 
the  river  would  be  free. 


13-inch  Mortar. 


But  Vicksburg  was  thought  to  be  invincible.  After  our  gallant 
Farragut  had  taken  New  Orleans,  he  went  up  the  river  with  gun¬ 
boats  to  attack  Vicksburg.  Assisted  by  Commodore  Porter,  they 
had  hammered  on  the  town  with  cannon-ball  and  bomb-shell  without 
making  any  impression  on  it.  Disappointed  and  weary  of  the  siege, 
thev  had  turned  back.  The  rebels  boasted  that  Vicksburg  could 
not  be  taken.  The  government  and  the  people  were  almost  in¬ 
clined  to  believe  their  boasts. 

But  General  U.  S.  Grant  intended  to  take  Vicksburg  and  open 
the  Mississippi.  It  w*as  what  he  came  there  for.  Another  great 
general  had  said,  Tliere  is  no  such  word  as  “  impossible.”  Grant 
did  not  say  this  —  he  had  very  little  to  say  at  any  time  —  but  he 
acted  it,  which  was  better. 

Vicksburg  was  built  on  the  “  bluffs,”  or  heights,  which  rise  up 
steeply  from  the  flat  bottom  lands  of  the  river.  All  through  these 
bottom  lands  ran  interlacing  creeks,  or  bayous.  These  swampy 
stretches  of  land  were  covered  with  dense  cypress  woods,  or  im¬ 
passable  sloughs,  in  which  a  man  would  sink  in  mud  up  to  his  arm- 
pits.  At  various  points  in  the  approach,  the  swamps  were  made 
more  difficult  to  traverse  by  trees  felled  to  lie  across  each  other, 
their  branches  left  sticking  up,  so  that  it  was  almost  impossible  for 
an  army  to  clamber  through  them.  Inside  the  city  and  all  about 
the  edges  of  the  bluff,  slaves  had  been  at  work  for  months  throwing 
up  fortifications.  Do  you  wonder  if  it  seemed  that  Vicksburg  could 
not  be  taken? 

The  last  month  of  the  year  1862,  Grant  sent  General  Sherman 


SIEGE  OF  VICKSBURG. 


519 


with  30,000  men  down  from  Memphis  to  the  mouth  of  the  Yazoo 
River,  which  flows  into  the  Mississippi  twelve  miles  above  Vicks¬ 
burg.  Here  Sherman  landed  his  men,  and  going  down  to  the  banks 
of  Chickasaw  Bayou,  made  an  attack  upon  the  northern  defenses  of 
Vicksburg.  Sherman  was  a  splendid  officer,  and  the  attack  was  a 
gallant  one,  but  hopeless.  We  left  hundreds  upon  hundreds  of  our 
brave  fellows  lying  dead  among  those  tangled  tree-bouglis,  and  in 
the  swamps  and  quicksands  along  the  bayou,  and  then  Sherman  fell 
back  to  be  joined  by  General  McClernand.  Together  they  took  a 
post  on  the  Arkansas  River,  fifty  miles  from  the  Mississippi,  which 
consoled  them  a  little  for  the  failure. 

Grant  was  having  also  bad  fortune  on  his  part  of  the  river. 
All  his  supplies  at  Holly  Springs  he  had  left  to  be  guarded  by  an 


Abatis. 


incompetent  officer,  named  Murphy.  While  Grant  was  absent  in 
some  other  part  of  his  army,  Sterling  Price  and  Earl  Van  Dorn, 
who  usually  hunted  in  couples,  came  down  and  took  Murphy  in 
their  toils  and  carried  off  everything  they  could  lay  their  hands  on. 
Murphy  was  discharged  for  cowardice  or  incapacity,  but  that  did  not 
bring  back  the  supplies. 

Still  Grant  was  no  whit  discouraged.  He  began  to  move  his 
army  down  to  the  mouth  of  the  Yazoo  River,  where  he  first  sent 
Sherman.  His  army  was  in  three  corps,  under  Sherman,  McCler¬ 
nand,  and  McPherson,  a  splendid  trio,  devoted  to  the  cause  for  which 


520 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


they  fought,  with  no  half-way  feeling.  Here  at  this  river’s  mouth,  for 
almost  three  months,  Grant  was  feeling  his  way  to  victory.  The 
year  before,  when  Farragut’s  ships  had  made  the  attempt  on  Vicks¬ 
burg,  a  canal  was  begun  across  a  tongue  of  land  round  which  the 
river  bent  in  a  sharp  angle.  If  this  canal  could  be  completed,  ships 
and  gun-boats  could  pass  below  Vicksburg,  as  they  had  passed  be¬ 
low  Island  No.  10,  and  attack  it  in  the  rear.  The  canal  had  been 
given  up  at  that  time,  and  now  Grant’s  soldiers  began  digging  again 
in  this  old  ditch,  and  were  going  on  hopefully,  when  one  day  the 
treacherous  river  overflowed  ;  away  went  the  banks  of  the  canal, 
and  the  diggers  were  forced  to  run  for  their  lives.  So  the  canal 
attempt  was  again  abandoned. 

All  these  months  a  plan  was  maturing  in  the  mind  of  the  general, 
who  sat  night  after  night,  “  peering  in  maps,  for  ports,  or  piers,  or 
roads,"’  searching  for  the  best  way  to  approach  Vicksburg.  At  last 
the  plan  was  full  grown  in  the  head  of  the  leader.  Then  he  pre¬ 
pared  to  act. 

Commodore  Porter  of  the  navy  was  at  hand  with  a  full  fleet  of 
stanch  gun-boats.  There  were  plenty  of  transports  for  the  soldiers. 
Grant  decided  to  send  the  boats  of  all  kinds  to  run  the  formidable 
batteries  of  Vicksburg.  He  himself  would  march  with  the  army 
down  the  west  bank  of  the  Mississippi  till  he  got  below  Vicksburg, 
and  meeting  the  boats  there,  the  army  could  be  taken  across  the 
river,  and  attack  the  place  in  the  rear. 

The  rebel  armies  in  this  whole  region  were  commanded  by  Genei’al 
Joseph  E.  Johnston,  whom  Lee  had  superseded  in  Virginia,  after  his 
wound  at  Fair  Oaks.  This  army  was  divided  in  two  parts.  One  was 
under  Bragg  in  Tennessee ;  the  other  under  General  Pemberton  iu 
Mississippi.  General  Pemberton’s  army  was  lying  north  of  Vicks¬ 
burg,  when  Grant  with  his  transports  carefully  covered  up  with  cotton 
bales  to  protect  them  from  cannon-balls,  passed  Vicksburg  in  safety, 
and  stopped  fifty  miles  down  the  river.  The  three  corps  marched 
down  the  west  bank,  —  Grant  in  the  centre  with  Sherman,  while 
McClernand  marched  on  his  left  hand,  and  McPherson  on  his  right. 

When  Grant  embarked  in  his  transports  to  cross  to  the  east  side 
of  the  Mississippi  he  gave  his  men  three  days’  food  in  their  knap¬ 
sacks,  and  threw  away  every  article  of  unnecessary  baggage.  His 
own  luggage  consisted  of  a  comb,  toothbrush,  and  a  pipe  and  tobacco 
pouch.  This  silent  general  of  ours  was  a  constant  smoker. 

With  this  slender  provision  for  the  future  our  army  crossed  the 


SIEGE  OF  VICKSBURG. 


521 


Mississippi.  It  must  live  on  the  country  till  Vicksburg  fell.  It 
was  victory  or  death  ;  conquest  or  starvation.  The  first  business  at 
hand  was  to  take  Grand  Gulf  and  Port  Gibson,  two  places  lying 
below  the  city.  This  our  troops  proceeded  to  do  with  great  alacrity. 
They  crossed  the  river  on  the  29th  of  April,  and  by  the  morning  of 
May  3d  both  Grand  Gulf  and  Port  Gibson  were  held  by  Grant’s 
army.  The  way  was  clearing  fast. 

In  the  mean  time  Grant’s  new  plan  of  attack  had  forced  Pember¬ 
ton  to  march  south.  His  army  now  lay  to  the  east  of  Vicksburg 
awaiting  the  attack,  and  prepared,  if  driven  back,  to  take  shelter  in 
the  town.  At  this  crisis  of  affairs  Grant  heard  that  Johnston,  by 
far  the  cleverest  general  the  rebels  had  in  the  West,  was  likely  to 
come  lip  behind  him  at  any  time.  His  head-quarters  were  at  Jack- 
son,  the  capital  of  Mississippi.  If  Johnston  were  left  there  in  large 
force  he  could  come  up  behind  Grant  as  he  went  on  towards  Pem¬ 
berton,  and  shut  him  in  between  the  two  rebel  hosts,  like  a  rat  in  a 
trap.  “  I  do  not  propose  to  leave  any  enemy  in  my  rear,”  said 
Grant,  and  accordingly  marched  across  to  Jackson  to  meet  the 
enemy.  There  was  some  smart  fighting  on  the  way  towards  Jackson 
which  opened  the  way  for  an  easy  victory  at  the  town.  Johnston 
was  no  longer  there  when  the  army  reached  the  capital  of  Missis¬ 
sippi.  He  had  found  he  was  not  strong  enough  in  numbers  to  hope 
for  success  and  had  prudently  withdrawn.  Our  soldiers  enjoyed 
running  up  the  stars  and  stripes  on  the  Mississippi  state-house,  and 
after  singing  “  We  ’ll  rally  round  the  flag,”  marched  back  towards 
Pemberton’s  encampment. 

On  the  16th  of  May  the  armies  met  midway  between  Jackson  and 
Vicksburg  and  had  their  first  field  battle.  The  rebels  were  forced 
back,  and  on  the  next  day  Pemberton’s  army,  shattered  and  broken, 
marched  inside  Vicksburg  and  shut  themselves  up  there.  The  siege 
of  Vicksburg  was  began. 

Next  an  assault  upon  the  town  was  tried.  This  was  on  the  18th 
of  May.  Its  ill-success  ought  to  have  decided  the  fact,  that  the 
men  who  would  take  Vicksburg  must  sit  down  outside  its  walls  and 
possess  their  souls  in  patience.  Time  and  General  Grant  would 
surely  win  the  town  if  Joseph  E.  Johnston  did  not  come  up  from 
behind  with  a  bigger  army.  Several  assaults  were  tried  without 
much  result,  and  at  length  the  army  encamped  at  ease  outside  the 
walls  and  the  siege  begun. 

Now  our  bomb-shells  began  a  constant  whiz  !  whiz  !  into  the  town. 


522 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


The  people  inside  dug  caves  in  the  precipitous  streets  of  the  bluff 
on  whose  side  the  town  was  built  and  there  they  took  refuge  from 
the  shells.  Sometimes  the  caves  were  quite  comfortable  ;  furniture 
and  bedding  were  carried  in,  and  the  women  and  children  huddled 
together  there  for  safety.  Provisions  began  to  grow  scarce.  There 
were  reports  that  mules  had  been  eaten,  and  even  rats  had  been 
killed  for  food.  The  only  hope  of  the  rebels  was  that  Johnston 
might  raise  an  army  and  come  to  their  succor.  Grant’s  only  fear 
was  that  Johnston  might  be  able  to  do  this.  A  letter  from  a  rebel 
in  Vicksburg  to  his  wife  was  intercepted  and  put  into  Grant’s  hands. 
“We  put  our  trust  in  the  Lord,”  said  the  writer;  “  and  we  expect 
Joe  Johnston  to  come  to  our  relief.” 

Grant  smiled  grimly.  “  They  put  a  good  deal  of  faith  in  the 
Lord  and  Joe  Johnston,”  he  said  to  Sherman  ;  “  but  you  must  whip 
Johnston  at  least  fifteen  miles  from  here.” 

Johnston  did  not  come.  He  could  not  get  together  a  sufficient 
army.  May  passed  into  June,  June  melted  into  July,  and  the 
troops  still  surrounded  Vicksburg.  On  the  second  day  of  July  a 
white  flag  waved  over  the  walls  of  the  beleaguered  city.  A  little 
later  two  men,  closely  blindfolded,  were  led  through  our  lines  to 
Grant’s  head-quarters.  They  came  to  ask  on  what  terms  he  would 
take  Vicksburg.  Grant,  who  had  already  been  named  “  Uncon¬ 
ditional  Surrender  ”  Grant,  offered  the  terms  which  had  given  him 
that  title.  The  rebels  were  to  throw  down  their  arms,  and  give 
up  the  city  with  all  it  contained.  He  would  meet  General  Pember¬ 
ton  next  day  at  three  o’clock,  when  all  firing  should  be  stopped, 
while  they  talked  over  the  matter.  The  result  of  the  talk  was  the 
understanding  that  Grant’s  army  should  sleep  the  next  night  in 
Vicksburg;. 

It  was  ten  o’clock  on  the  morning  of  the  4th  of  July,  when  the 
rebel  army,  27,000  in  number,  marched  out  of  their  defenses,  each 
regiment  throwing  its  guns,  knapsacks,  and  ammunition,  in  a  great 
pile,  and  covering  them  with  the  regimental  flag.  This  was  done  in 
funereal  silence,  our  men  looking  on  in  silent  sympathy  for  their 
beaten  foes. 

But  they  did  cheer  loudly  when  Vicksburg  was  fairly  entered,  and 
the  national  flag  was  flying  there.  It  was  the  happiest  4th  of  July 
in  a  long  time.  And  when  the  telegraph  wires  told  the  country 
that  “  Vicksburg  had  fallen,”  the  delight  almost  passed  bounds.  As 
the  news  spread  from  city  to  town,  from  town  to  village,  the  whole 


SIEGE  OF  VICKSBURG.  523 

North  resounded  with  the  ringing  of  bells  and  the  pealing  of  cannon. 
It  was  the  brightest  day  since  the  war. 

Ever  since  the  last  of  May  General  Banks  had  been  besieging 
Port  Hudson  in  the  river  below.  He  had  made  many  assaults  upon 
the  place,  and  was  ably  aided  by  some  regiments  of  colored  men, 
formerly  slaves,  who  prized  freedom  sufficiently  to  sell  their  lives 
for  it.  But  up  to  the  taking  of  Vicksburg  the  place  held  out.  On 
the  7th  of  July  news  reached  the  rebel  commander  in  Port  Hud¬ 
son  that  Vicksburg  was  taken.  Immediately  he  proposed  surrender ; 
and  on  the  9th  of  July  the  place,  with  6,400  prisoners,  was  in  Banks’s 
power.  The  last  obstacle  was  gone  from  the  Mississippi.  The  great 
river  was  unfettered  from  its  source  to  its  mouth.  Once  more  it 
flowed  “  unvexed  to  the  sea.” 


A  Louisiana  Swamp. 


While  Banks  was  at  work  in  southern  Mississippi,  the  rebels  in 
Texas  had  taken  advantage  of  his  absence  to  make  trouble  there. 
The  rebel  Magruder,  whom  we  heard  of  in  Virginia  early  in  the 
war,  had  attacked  Galveston,  and  made  great  havoc  among  our  ships 
on  the  Texan  coast.  The  rebels  in  upper  Louisiana  also  rose  in 
arms,  and  began  to  march  south,  apparently  with  hostile  designs  on 
New  Orleans.  Therefore,  when  Banks  returned  victorious  from 


524 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


Port  Hudson,  he  started  on  an  expedition  to  clear  the  rebels  from 
these  States.  He  was  so  far  successful  that  they  were  soon  driven 
across  the  Colorado  River,  and  Texas  and  Louisiana  were  again 
under  national  control. 

The  Southwest  was  restored  again  to  its  allegiance.  Arkansas 
was  entered  by  the  Union  troops.  Our  standard  floated  over  Mis¬ 
sissippi  and  Alabama.  One  such  victory  as  that  of  Vicksburg  in 
the  East,  and  the  war  would  be  at  an  end. 


CHAPTER  XLVII. 

THE  WAR  IN  THE  EAST. 

The  Army  in  Winter-quarters. — Stonewall  Jackson’s  Death.  —  Invasion  of  Pennsylvania. — 
The  Call  for  a  Leader.  —  Gettysburg.  —  Sanitary  Commission.  —  Horrors  of  a  Battle-field. 
—  Narrative  of  an  Eye-witness.  —  A  Modern  Sidney.  —  The  Consecration  of  Gettysburg. 

It  is  discouraging  to  turn  from  the  army  of  the  West  to  the  army 
of  the  East.  We  left  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  after  the  defeat  at 
Fredericksburg,  in  its  winter-quarters  on  the  Rappahannock.  Lee, 


Army  Huts. 


still  strongly  ensconced  in  Fredericksburg.  Burnside,  discouraged 
and  always  very  distrustful  of  his  ability,  resigned.  Fighting  Joe 
Hooker,  who  enjoyed  a  great  popularity  among  the  soldiers,  was 
made  his  successor.  He  took  command  in  January,  1863,  and 
began  brushing  up  the  army  again,  and  getting  it  in  trim  for  a  new 
campaign. 

In  April  it  numbered  one  hundred  thousand  foot,  thirteen  thou¬ 
sand  horse,  and  ten  thousand  artillery,  all  in  splendid  marching  order. 


THE  WAR  IN  THE  EAST. 


525 


Hooker  ordered  a  movement  across  the  Rappahannock  River.  He 
was  at  this  time  on  the  opposite  side  from  Fredericksburg,  and  by  a 
secret  movement  across  the  river,  to  the  rear  of  Lee,  he  hoped  to 
come  down  and  give  a  decisive  blow  to  his  forces.  He  moved  his 
army  successfully,  and  the  last  of  April  he  had  reached  Cliancellors- 
ville,  northwest  of  Fredericksburg,  so  quietly  that  Lee  knew  nothing 
of  his  movements  till  he  heard  of  him  there.  When  he  heard  of  this 
new  position,  he  determined  not  to  be  attacked  in  Fredericksburg, 
but  to  go  out  and  give  battle  himself.  Accordingly,  on  the  1st  day 
of  May,  the  advance  columns  of  Hooker’s  army  met  the  advance 
of  Lee,  who,  ably  seconded  in  his  plans  by  Stonewall  Jackson,  was 
approaching  Chancellorsville.  The  events  of  that  day  were  unim¬ 
portant,  and  at  night  Hooker  ordered  his  army  behind  their  de¬ 
fenses  at  Chancellorsville,  while  Lee  and  Jackson,  only  a  little  dis¬ 
tance  from  his  lines,  talked  over  the  plan  of  attack  next  day.  * 

The  morning  of  the  2d  of  May  saw  the  beginning  of  the  un¬ 
fortunate  battle  of  Chancellorsville.  Although  the  Union  force 
outnumbered  the  rebels,  the  masterly  skill  with  which  Stonewall 
Jackson  managed  the  attack,  made  the  day  a  sad  one  for  our  coun¬ 
try.  All  day  Jackson  was  in  the  field  inspiring  his  army  of  30,000 
picked  troops  with  all  his  own  valor.  At  the  close  of  the  day  he 
had  pushed  forward  with  some  of  his  staff,  till  he  was  under  fire 
from  the  Union  lines.  He  spurred  back  hastily  towards  a  com¬ 
pany  of  his  own  men.  His  men  saw  him  coming,  and  mistaking 
their  general  and  his  staff  for  a  party  of  Union  cavalry,  fired 
all  together  into  their  midst,  and  Jackson,  their  leader,  and  the  pride 
of  the  rebel  army  in  Virginia,  fell  dangerously  wounded.  He 
lived  a  few  days,  hopeful  of  recovery  till  almost  the  last,  and  died 
on  the  10th  of  May.  So  ended  the  career  of  one  of  the  most  re¬ 
markable  soldiers  of  the  rebellion.  When,  after  his  fall,  General 
Lee  heard  that  Jackson’s  left  arm  had  been  amputated,  he  wrote 
him,  “  You  have  lost  your  left  arm  ;  but  I  have  lost  my  right  arm 
in  you.”  He  was  the  very  right  arm  of  the  rebellion  in  Virginia, 
and  his  loss  was  a  greater  blow  to  Lee  than  any  single  defeat. 
Even  his  success  at  Chancellorsville  could  not  compensate  for  it. 
The  battle  was  resumed  the  next  day,  and  the  next ;  the  rebels  all 
the  time  driving  back  the  Unionists  towards  the  river.  On  the 
5th  of  May  Hooker  retreated  across  the  stream,  and  once  more 
settled  down  in  his  old  quarters. 

One  month  after  this  sickening  defeat  at  Chancellorsville,  there 


526 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


was  a  stir  all  through  the  rebel  lines.  Encouraged  by  his  successes, 
and  believing  that  his  army  had  proved  themselves  incapable  of 
defeat,  Lee  determined  to  carry  out  his  design  of  taking  the  war 
out  of  Virginia.  He  was  ready  for  another  invasion  into  Pennsyl¬ 
vania.  Just  about  one  month  after  the  last  battle  he  was  on  the 
march,  and  by  the  27th  of  June  part  of  his  army  had  reached 
Chambersburg,  Pennsylvania. 

The  inhabitants  of  Pennsylvania  were  overwhelmed  with  alarm, 
and  all  over  the  North  the  news  spread  consternation.  For  as  yet 
the  Union  armies  in  Virginia  had  not  had  a  general  in  whom  public 
Confidence  rested.  The  North  had  seen  army  after  army  wasted 
and  broken.  It  had  seen  in  Virginia  the  failures  of  McClellan, 
Pope,  Burnside,  Hooker.  The  whole  North  cried  for  a  leader  for 
this  splendid  army,  on  which  it  lavished  its  riches  without  stint. 

“  Back  from  the  trebly  crimsoned  field 
Terrible  words  are  thunder-tost, 

Full  of  the  wrath  that  will  not  yield, 

Full  of  revenge  for  battles  lost ! 

Hark  to  their  echo,  as  it  crost 
The  capital,  making  faces  wan  ! 

‘  End  this  murderous  holocaust ! 

Abraham  Lincoln,  give  us  a  man.’  ” 

“  ‘  Oh,  we  will  follow  him  to  the  death, 

Where  the  foeman's  fiercest  columns  are; 

Oh,  we  will  use  our  latest  breath, 

Cheering  for  every  sacred  star. 

His  to  marshal  us  nigh  and  far, 

Ours  to  battle,  as  patriots  can, 

When  a  hero  leads  the  Holy  War! 

‘  Abraham  Lincoln,  give  us  a  man.’  ” 

Such  was  the  cry  of  both  people  and  army  as  a  poet  puts  it  into 
words. 

This  extract  from  the  above  poem  printed  at  this  time,  represents 
the  feeling  of  nearly  every  loyal  heart.  Hooker’s  army  was  much  re¬ 
duced  by  its  last  defeat  and  by  the  expiration  of  the  term  for  which 
many  of  the  men  had  enlisted,  to  a  bare  remnant  of  the  great  army 
of  April.  He  led  it  on  to  Frederick  in  Maryland,  the  same  place 
from  whence  McClellan  had  started  in  pursuit  of  Lee  in  his  former 
invasion.  Here  another  change  was  made  in  the  command.  Gen¬ 
eral  Halleck  at  Washington,  and  Hooker  in  Virginia,  had  a  dispute 
about  the  policy  of  evacuating  Harper’s  Ferry.  It  ended  in  Hook- 


THE  WAR  IN  THE  EAST. 


527 


er’s  throwing  up  his  command,  and  Halleck  at  once  put  General 
George  G.  Meade  in  his  stead. 

Meade  took  the  command,  and  heavily  reinforced  from  Washing¬ 
ton,  kept  in  pursuit  of  Lee. 

The  rebel  army  had  already 
ravaged  the  region  about 
Chambersburg,  and  were  pre¬ 
paring  to  cross  the  Susque¬ 
hanna  River,  near  Harris¬ 
burg,  the  state  capital.  When 
Lee  heard  that  Meade  was  on 
his  track,  he  paused  to  consider 
what  he  should  do  next.  It 
would  hardly  be  wise  to  get 
too  far  away  from  his  supplies, 
until  he  had  again  proved  his 
superiority  in  battle.  There¬ 
fore  Lee  concluded  to  wait  and  fight  the  Union  army  before  he 
went  any  farther. 

On  the  morning  of  the  1st  of  July  6,000  mounted  Union  soldiers 
met  the  advance  of  Lee’s  army  near  the  village  of  Gettysburg.  It 
was  an  obscure  little  town,  nestling  among  hills,  and  famous  then 
for  nothing  but  its  peaceful  beauty.  Now  its  name  rings  in  our  ears 
like  a  war-trumpet,  calling  up  scenes  only  of  bloodshed  and  battle. 

The  battle  began  on  the  morning  of  the  1st.  It  raged  for  three 
days  along  the  ridges  that  bounded  the  little  town,  growing  more 
and  more  fearful  as  these  summer  days  went  by.  At  the  end  of 
the  second  day’s  fighting,  the  advantage  seemed  in  favor  of  Lee. 
Already  nearly  40,000  men  were  dead  or  wounded,  in  the  two 
armies.  But  on  the  third  day  the  tide  turned.  Victory,  so  long 
a  stranger  to  the  cause  of  the  Union,  at  last  came  to  bless  the  old 
flag.  On  the  evening  of  the  3d  of  July  Lee  began  silently  and 
swiftly  to  withdraw  his  army,  thoroughly  foiled  in  his  second  at¬ 
tempt  at  invading  the  North.  On  the  4th  of  July,  when  the 
triumphant  shouts  were  going  up  from  Vicksburg,  Lee  was  on  his 
way  from  the  field  of  Gettysburg.  That  sacred  day  had  given  us 
two  occasions  for  rejoicing,  and  hope  once  more  animated  the  heart 
of  the  nation. 

When  Lee’s  retreating  army  moved  off  the  field,  it  left  thou¬ 
sands  of  dead  and  wounded  behind.  And  of  the  Army  of  the 

34 


528 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


Potomac,  probably  15,000  dead  and  wounded  lay  in  the  valleys 
and  on  the  hill-slopes  about  Gettysburg.  I  will  not  attempt  to 
paint  the  horrors  of  such  a  battle-field,  where  between  twenty  and 
thirty  thousand  men,  in  all  degrees  of  agony,  torn  by  gun-shot 
wounds,  or  mangled  by  cannon-ball,  lay  hours  and  days  under  the 
July  sun,  crying  for  death  to  put  an  end  to  their  torments. 

As  soon  as  possible  after  the  battle,  the  country  began  to  send 
help  to  these  sufferers.  Delegates  from  different  States  hurried  to 
the  field  bearing  all  the  comforts  that  tender  hearts  could  devise. 
The  “  Sanitary  Commission,”  an  organization  formed  to  relieve  the 
sufferings  of  the  soldier  on  the  battle-field  or  in  the  hospital,  sent 
on  its  great  supplies  of  stores  ;  food,  medicine,  dressing  for  wounds, 
and  everything  else  that  could  minister  to  the  men.  In  many 
cases  the  governors  of  the  States  headed  the  delegation  which  went 
to  carry  succor  to  its  brave  sons  on  the  field.  From  one  of  these 
eye-witnesses  I  have  the  following  account  of  Gettysburg  within 
twenty-four  hours  after  the  last  day’s  fighting  was  over. 

“  As  I  approached  the  scene  of  battle,”  says  my  informant,  “  it 
seemed  to  me  at  first  as  if  the  terrible,  sickening  odor  which 
arose  from  the  field  strewn  with  dead  and  dying  men,  and  dead 
horses,  would  make  it  impossible  for  me  to  remain  there  for  a  mo¬ 
ment.  I  paused,  faint  and  almost  suffocated.  But  summoning 
up  all  the  powers  of  my  will,  reflecting  on  the  suffering  of  those 
who  had  lain  in  that  dreadful  place  since  the  battle  began,  more 
than  three  days  before,  I  pushed  on,  resolved  that  no  weakness  of 
the  senses  should  delay  me  in  such  an  errand. 

“  Now  my  ears  were  greeted  by  a  chorus  of  groans  and  outcries, 
such  as  I  shall  never  forget,  to  my  dying  day.  I  hear  them  some¬ 
times  now  in  my  dreams.  They  came  from  a  barn  on  my  right,  in 
which  some  of  the  wounded  had  been  hurridly  lain  for  shelter  till 
some  better  disposition  could  be  made  of  them.  I  went  to  the 
door  of  the  building.  Inside,  the  floor  was  covered  thick  with 
men,  in  all  degrees  of  agony,  from  all  sorts  of  wounds.  Many 
were  already  dead,  many  were  too  near  death  to  make  any  sound, 
but  from  those  not  yet  too  weak  to  cry  out,  came  that  pitiful 
moaning  of  strong  men  struck  down  while  full  of  life  and  health. 

“  I  called  aloud,  ‘  Are  there  any  boys  from  New  Hampshire 
here  ?  ’  A  few  heads  raised  up  a  little,  and  some  eager  voices 
cried  ‘  Here.’ 

“  I  had  with  me  a  few  cans  of  jelly,  only  what  I  could  carry  in 


THE  WAR,  IN  THE  EAST. 


529 


my  hands,  as  I  had  hastened  on  in  advance.  This  I  opened  at  once 
and  began  to  distribute  by  teaspoonfuls  to  the  parched  mouths  and 
throats  of  the  men.  There  was  not  enough  in  all  I  had  to  moisten 
the  lips  of  one  tenth  of  the  sufferers,  and  I  cannot  describe  the  pain 
it  cost  me  to  refuse  any  of  them.  There  were  many  wounded  rebels 
among  them,  and  they  begged  piteously  for  a  taste  of  the  cooling 
jelly,  or  even  to  lap  out  with  their  tongues  the  dishes  when  they 
were  emptied.  Poor  fellows,  my  heart  bled  for  'them,  as  truly  as 
for  our  own  boys,  and  what  poor  help  I  could  give  them  I  rendered. 
They  were  all  brother  men  together,  and  I  pitied  all  equally. 

“  One  young  lieutenant  from  my  own  State  I  found  in  such  a  hor¬ 
rible  state  of  suffering  as  I  will  not  attempt  to  describe.  He  had 
been  two  or  three  days  under  the  sun,  with  a  terrible  wound  in  the 
side  and  was  just  brought  in  under  cover  and  laid  on  the  bare  floor 
of  the  barn.  I  knelt  beside  him  and  with  some  water  which  I 
brought  in  a  tin  cup,  began  to  bathe  out  his  wound.  He  looked  up 
with  a  smile  of  gratitude.  ‘Ah,  that  feels  good.  So  good,’  he 
said,  ‘  but  you  would  better  not  waste  time  over  me ,  I  can  only  last 
a  few  hours  longer  at  most.  I  can’t  possibly  get  well,  and  some  of 
the  men  will  recover  with  care.  Go  and  look  after  them.’  ” 

This  is  one  little  glimpse  of  the  battle-field  at  Gettysburg.  I 
do  not  wish  to  dwell  on  its  horrors,  and  we  will  turn  aside  from 
them.  Our  best  remembrance  of  it  is  that  there  were  deeds  of  hero¬ 
ism  and  words  of  noble  self-sacrifice,  such  as  fell  from  the  lips  of  the 
dying  lieutenant,  that  make  us  feel  the  grandeur  of  humanity. 
Many  a  noble  deed  that  will  never  be  recorded,  was  done  by  men 
who  seemed  but  rough  fellows  to  the  outer  vision.  Let  us  thank 
God  for  these  redeeming  features  of  war,  for  these  proofs  of  the 
divine  beauty  of  human  souls.  The  battle-fields  of  America  have 
shown  that  the  last  Sidney  did  not  die  at  Zutphen. 

Shortly  after  this  the  field  at  Gettysburg  was  consecrated  as  a 
national  cemetery  for  the  burial  of  our  soldiers.  In  November, 
after  the  battle,  President  Lincoln  went  there  te  be  present  at  the 
ceremony.  Standing  above  the  graves  of  those  wno  had  fallen  there, 
he  said,  “  Let  us  here  highly  resolve  that  these  dead  shall  not  have 
died  in  vain  ;  that  this  nation  shall,  under  God,  have  a  new  birth  of 
freedom  ;  that  a  government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for 
the  people,  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth.” 

To  which  solemn  words  all  loyal  hearts  responded  earnestly, 
Amen  ! 


530 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


CHAPTER  XLVIII. 

RIOTS  IN  NEW  YORK  CITY. 

Drafting.  —  Traitors  in  the  North.  — A  Peace  Party.  —  Beginning  of  the  Draft.  —  The  Mob. 

—  Destruction  of  Private  Property.  —  Mob  Violence  is  suppressed. 

You  can  fancy  that  the  great  loss  of  men  in  our  armies  must  have 
kept  up  a  constant  call  for  soldiers  from  all  the  loyal  States,  and 
that  the  enthusiasm  which  at  first  existed  would  be  somewhat 
dampened  by  the  series  of  disasters  in  Virginia.  In  the  spring  of 
1863  the  vacancies  in  the  armies  filled  up  so  slowly  that  the  govern¬ 
ment  found  it  would  be  obliged  to  resort  to  drafting  to  fill  up  the 
ranks.  Up  to  this  time  all  those  enlisted  in  the  national  army  had 
done  so  of  their  own  free  will.  The  rebels  had  long  before  drafted 
to  fill  their  armies,  and  even  boys  and  gray-haired  old  men  were 
seen  bearing  arms  in  their  ranks. 

You  have  heard  perhaps  of  drafting  or  “conscription”  in  Europe. 


Drafting  Wheel. 


In  certain  European  lands,  Prussia  for  example,  every  able-bodied 
man  is  liable  to  be  taken  as  a  soldier  for  three  years.  Those  coun¬ 
tries  keep  a  large  standing  army  all  the  time  ready  for  war.  In 
America  we  have  onty  a  small  regular  army,  depending  on  the 
citizens  to  “  volunteer  ”  in  times  of  need.  But  now,  as  the  volun¬ 
teers  did  not  come  in  fast  enough,  President  Lincoln  decided  there 
must  be  a  draft. 

The  conditions  of  the  draft  were  mild  and  reasonable.  No  man 
over  forty-five  years  nor  under  eighteen  years  could  be  taken.  A  son 
who  was  the  support  of  his  widowed  mother  could  not  be  drawn, 


RIOTS  IN  NEW  YORK  CITY.  531 

nor  a  father  with  motherless  children  ;  indeed,  there  were  many 
modifications  that  made  the  drafting  as  mild  as  might  be. 

But  the  ill-fortune  we  had  suffered  in  the  war  thus  far  had  dis¬ 
couraged  so  many  of  the  loyal  people,  and  affairs  looked  so  dark  for 
the  Union  in  the  first  half  of  1863,  before  the  Vicksburg  and  Gettys¬ 
burg  successes,  that  the  evil  counsels  of  the  party  in  the  North  who 
were  traitorously  in  sympathy  with  the  rebels,  began  to  be  heard 
more  loudly  than  they  had  dared  to  speak  since  Sumter  was  fired  on. 
The  Governor  of  New  York,  Horatio  Seymour,  was  one  of  these 
sympathizers  ;  Franklin  Pierce,  ex-president  of  the  United  States, 
was  another,  and  many  others  of  less  note  scattered  over  the  North, 
joined  with  some  of  the  leading  newspapers  in  our  large  cities,  were 
doing  all  in  their  power  to  put  an  end  to  the  war  at  any  cost,  how¬ 
ever  harmful  to  the  nation.  Of  course  at  this  time  the  war  could 
have  ended  on  no  other  terms  than  the  division  of  this  noble  nation 
into  two  parts.  It  would  have  been  like  cutting  a  body  in  two,  or 
dividing  the  top  of  a  tree  from  its  roots.  Fancy,  if  you  are  a  loyal 
American,  how  it  would  have  been  if  we  had  then  surrendered  the 
Union  ;  drawn  a  line  across  Virginia,  Kentucky,  and  on  west  to  the 
Pacific,  and  allowed  the  South  to  become  a  foreign  nation  on  our 
borders. 

Still  this  “  peace  party  ”  in  the  North  clamored  for  the  end  of 
war,  even  though  they  must  have  known  it  could  only  come  by 
yielding  up  our  national  life.  Therefore,  under  the  treasonable 
teachings  of  some  of  these  men,  the  draft  was  made  unpopular  in 
our  large  cities.  The  leaders  of  the  “  peace  party  ”  had  probably 
no  definite  idea  of  exciting  forcible  opposition  to  the  draft.  They 
were,  as  a  rule,  American  citizens,  and  even  in  their  wildest  mo¬ 
ments,  American  citizens  are  not  inclined  to  turn  themselves  into  a 
mob,  or  to  furnish  mob-leaders.  But  in  some  of  our  large  cities, 
especially  in  New  York,  where  we  have  most  generously  opened  our 
doors  to  the  poor  and  oppressed  of  other  countries,  and  have  per¬ 
haps  too  generously  given  them  the  right  of  citizenship  while  they 
were  still  steeped  in  the  ignorance  in  which  they  were  born  in  their 
own  lands,  there  were  a  large  class  of  voters  whom  bad  teachings 
could  at  any  time  turn  into  a  mob.  This  class  was  principally 
composed  of  the  Irish  population.  -I  should  be  unjust  to  the  other  for¬ 
eign  citizens  of  our  country,  if  I  included  them.  The  Germans,  who 
come  next  in  numbers  to  the  Irish,  are,  as  a  rule,  peaceable,  law- 
abiding  citizens,  many  of  them  Republicans  in  theory  before  they 


532 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


join  our  republic.  The  Irish,  brought  up  under  English  rule,  which 
they  are  trained  to  hate,  and  are  always  in  antagonism  with,  have 
by  a  long  habit  of  resistance  to  law,  become  unfit  subjects  for  a 
democratic  government.  They  form,  in  all  our  large  cities,  where 
they  number  in  sufficient  force,  a  lawless  inflammable  mass  of  igno¬ 
rant  people,  ready  to  rush  into  violence  when  wrought  on  by  bad 
leaders. 

On  the  13tli  of  July,  in  1863,  when  in  several  appointed  places 
in  New  York  city  the  drafting  had  begun,  such  a  mob  as  was  never 
before  seen  in  the  United  States  surrounded  the  offices ;  drove  the 
officers  from  their  posts  ;  set  some  of  the  buildings  on  fire  ;  tore  out 
the  contents  of  other  buildings  into  the  streets  ;  and  began  a  mad 
career  of  destruction  and  anarchy. 

Gathering  in  force,  armed  with  clubs,  brickbats,  and  other  weap¬ 
ons,  this  great  tide  of  furious  men,  women,  and  boys  rushed  on 
through  the  streets.  They  entered  private  houses  and  scattered  the 
contents  to  the  four  winds.  They  robbed  and  murdered  unoffend¬ 
ing  citizens  in  the  streets,  and  sacked  shops  filled  with  valuable 
wares,  carrying  off  clothing,  jewels,  and  other  spoils.  On  one  of  the 
avenues  of  the  city  was  a  fine  building  raised  by  the  charity  of  good 
men  and  women,  devoted  to  the  protection  and  rearing  of  colored 
children  left  fatherless  and  motherless.  The  bestial  multitude 
rushed  thither,  and  driving  off  the  few  policemen  that  could  be 
called  to  guard  it,  they  sacked  and  burned  the  building.  Fortu¬ 
nately  the  children  had  been  taken  away  before  the  mob  had  reached 
the  spot,  and  thus  their  lives  were  saved.  But  woe  to  the  unoffend¬ 
ing  blacks,  men,  women,  or  children,  who  fell  in  the  way  of  the  riot¬ 
ers.  They  stabbed  them,  trampled  on  them,  burned  their  bodies 
before  life  was  extinct,  hanged  them  on  lamp  posts,  almost  tore 
them  limb  from  limb  in  their  wild-beast  fury. 

One  of  the  loyal  newspapers  of  New  York  was  the  “  Tribune,” 
founded  and  edited  by  Horace  Greeley.  For  years  this  eminent 
journalist  had  been  the  earnest  friend  of  the  laboring  classes.  Prob¬ 
ably  no  man  in  the  United  States  had  done  more  to  elevate  the 
masses  who  formed  this  very  mob  than  Horace  Greeley.  Yet  they 
howled  curses  on  him,  and  sought  him  that  they  might  sacrifice  him 
to  their  thirst  for  blood.  Pausing  before  the  house  of  a  philan¬ 
thropic  citizen  where  Mr.  Greeley  was  accustomed  to  visit,  and  where 
a  part  of  the  mob  believed  he  lived,  they  sacked  the  house  from  top 
to  bottom.  Among  other  valuables  the  owner  had  a  fine  library, 


EFFORTS  TO  TAKE  CHARLESTON. 


533 


and  they  tore  the  priceless  books  from  the  bindings,  scattering  the 
leaves  to  the  winds,  as  if  in  their  brutal  ignorance  they  would  visit 
their  hatred  of  all  learning  on  the  innocent  books  that  contained  it. 
For  three  days  robbery,  arson,  murder  raged  in  the  streets.  New 
York  did  not  contain  one  Napoleon  bold  enough  to  set  a  cannon  at 
the  end  of  a  street  where  the  mob  centred,  and  with  one  blast  put 
the  speediest  and  least  bloody  end  to  this  riot.  At  last,  on  the  16th 
of  July,  soldiers  began  to  arrive,  bayonets  began  to  bristle  in  the 
streets,  and  before  a  few  determined  armed  men,  the  mob  slunk  to 
their  dens  in  corner  grog-shops  and  low  tenement  houses,  loaded  with 
the  spoils  they  had  gained,  and  the  uprising  was  over.  How  hid¬ 
eous  and  demoniacal  the  scenes  of  those  three  days  were,  only  those 
who  saw  them  can  tell.  And  for  weeks  afterwards  the  faces  of  those 
who  had  been  part  of  the  mob,  glowed  with  savage  ferocity. 
Even  the  boys  who  had  hooted  and  howled  in  its  midst,  looked  like 
animals  who  had  tasted  blood  for  the  first  time.  So  ended  the  “ New 
York  draft  riots f  one  of  the  most  terrible  episodes  of  the  whole  war. 


CHAPTER  XLIX. 

EFFORTS  TO  TAKE  CHARLESTON. 

Three  Strongholds  of  the  Enemy. — Monitors  in  Charleston  Harbor.  —  Folly  Island.  —  The 

Storming  of  Wagner. — Robert  Shaw  “buried  under  his  Niggers.” — The  Swamp  Angel. 

—  Fall  of  Wagner. 

By  the  beginning  of  the  year  1863  the  only  real  obstacle  to  our 
possession  of  the  whole  sea-coast  from  Fortress  Monroe  to  New 
Orleans,  was  Charleston,  South  Carolina.  It  was  one  of  the  three 
points  which,  when  conquered,  would  decide  the  fate  of  the  nation. 
From  the  first,  as  soon  as  Vicksburg,  Richmond,  and  Charleston 
could  be  reduced,  every  one  knew  the  war  would  be  at  an  end. 

The  care  with  which  the  entrance  to  Charleston  was  guarded, 
showed  that  the  rebels  thought  so  too.  The  approach  to  Charles¬ 
ton  harbor  is  between  a  mass  of  those  low-lying  islands  that  fringe 
the  whole  Atlantic  coast.  All  these  islands  flanking  the  harbor 
were  dotted  thick  with  forts  and  batteries.  Right  in  the  middle  of 
the  channel  leading  to  the  city  stood  Fort  Sumter,  the  proudest 
tfophy  of  rebellion,  with  her  guns  pointing  out  to  sea,  and  the 
11  stars  and  bars  ”  floating  over  her  battered  walls. 


534 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


An  Armored  Lookout. 


Early  in  1863  Commodore  Dupont  lay  off  Morris  Island  with 
his  fleet.  He  had  five  splendid  gun-boats  and  nine  iron  monitors, 

— each  one  of  them  an  exact 
copy  of  the  famous  little  craft 
we  lately  saw  fighting  the 
Merrimack  in  Hampton 
Roads.  The  nine  were  mar¬ 
shaled  in  line.  They  were 
going  up  through  the  passage 
between  Morris  and  -Sulli¬ 
van’s  Island,  between  the  fire 
from  both  forts,  to  attack 
Sumter.  The  men  on  board 
the  Ironsides ,  —  Dupont’s 
flag-ship  —  might  see  with  a  field-glass  the  roofs  of  Charleston 
crowded  with  spectators,  looking  curiously,  but  without  any  dismay, 
on  our  attacking  fleet.  They  had  come  to  believe  Charleston  im¬ 
pregnable,  and  had  little  fear  for  its  safety. 

Our  iron-clads  went  boldly  up  and  began  the  bombardment.  But 
though  they  rained  balls  on  the  fort  like  hail-stones,  the  attack  was 
in  vain.  In  return,  the  balls  from  the  forts  pattered  fiercely  on  the 
vessels.  Half  an  hour  was  hardly  over  when  they  all  steamed  back 
again  —  one  of  the  valiant  little  monitors  riddled  with  balls  and  on 
the  point  of  sinking  ;  and  the  attempt  on  Charleston  was  for  this 
time  abandoned. 

Dupont;  who  did  not  much  enjoy  the  fighting  done  in  these  little 
iron  turrets,  with  the  men  securely  hidden  from  the  foe,  now  re¬ 
signed  his  command,  and  Foote,  who  had  done  so  well  in  the  Mis¬ 
sissippi,  was  called  there.  But  that  brave  and  pious-souled  com¬ 
mander  died  before  he  could  reach  his  new  post,  and  Commodore 
Dahlgren,  whose  improvements  in  cannon  had  caused  a  gun  to  be 
named  in  his  honor  the  “  Dahlgren  gun,”  came  to  the  place.  Gil¬ 
more,  successful  at  Fort  Pulaski,  took  charge  of  the  land  forces. 
With  this  strong  combination  of  Gilmore  and  Dahlgren,  another 
attack  on  the  defenses  of  Charleston  began. 

General  Hunter,  who  had  commanded  the  land  troops  on  Dupont’s 
expedition,  had  left  his  forces  encamped  on  Folly  Island,  south 
of  Morris.  Here  hidden  among  high  reeds  and  marsh-grass,  the 
men  had  laid  out  roads,  set  up  batteries,  thrown  up  intrenchments, 
unseen  by  the  enemy.  As  soon  as  Gilmore  had  made  his  plans  he 


EFFORTS  TO  TAKE  CHARLESTON. 


535 


commanded  a  body  of  troops  to  land  on  the  south  end  of  Morris 
Island.  At  its  north  end  was  Fort  Wagner,  one  of  the  strongest  of 
the  Charleston  defenses.  It  guarded  the  south  side  of  the  outer  en¬ 
trance  to  Charleston  harbor. 

On  the  9th  of  July  General  Strong,  who  had  landed  with  2,000 
men,  began  to  creep  silently  up  towards  Wagner.  They  made  an 
indecisive  assault,  in  which  half  the  attacking  party  were  lost,  and 
then  fell  back,  and  settled  down  upon  the  swampy,  reedy  island  to 
await  another  opportunity.  A  few  days  later  other  troops  joined 
them  and  it  was  resolved  that  the  time  for  attack  had  come. 

On  the  morning  of  the  18th  of  July  the  storming  party  was 
ready  to  move  on  Wagner.  Six  regiments  were  ordered  forward, 
under  leadership  of  General  Strong,  who  was  to  direct  the  charge. 
In  the  van  stood  the  Fifty-fourth  Massachusetts,  —  the  first  black 
regiment,  —  given  the  post  of  honor  on  this  day.  Their  young 
colonel,  Robert  G.  Shaw,  was  at  its  head.  He  looked  hardly  more 
than  a  boy  with  his  fair  blonde  face  shining  out  in  front  of  the 
gleaming  black  faces  of  his  men.  In  a  few  eloquent  words  he 
called  on  them  to  prove  now  that  freedom  was  worth  the  price  that 
had  been  set  on  it. 

It  was  almost  dark  when  the  solid  column  started  on  a  half  run. 
A  sheet  of  flame  seemed  to  wrap  the  fort,  as  the  musket  volleys 
crashed  from  the  walls,  and  the  cannon  belched  its  deadly  contents 
into  the  midst  of  the  approaching  troops.  Undaunted,  they  leaped 
the  ditch,  scaled  the  sides,  and  planted  the  grand  old  flag  (the 
soldiers  called  it  “  Old  Glory  ”)  on  the  top  of  the  wall.  It  waved 
there  only  one  instant,  tottered,  and  fell,  just  as  the  storming 
column  also  reeled  and  fell  back  into  the  ditch  below. 

Colonel  Shaw  had  fallen,  struck  dead  at  once.  General  Strong 
was  mortally  wounded.  Every  officer  in  the  regiment  was  killed 
or  wounded,  when  what  was  left  of  the  Fifty-fourth  Massachusetts 
was  led  back  under  the  command  of  Lieutenant  Higginson,  a  boy 
of  nineteen. 

Another  brigade  advanced  to  the  charge,  under  Colonel  Putnam. 
This  also  suffered  the  fate  of  the  first.  After  half  an  hour’s  hard 
fighting,  what  remained  of  the  brigade  was  forced  to  go  back,  leav¬ 
ing  its  brave  leader  dead  on  the  field  of  honor. 

The  body  of  Colonel  Shaw  was  found  close  under  the  walls  among 
the  men  he  had  led  so  well.  The  rebels  who  came  out  to  bury  the 
slain,  showed  their  hatred  of  the  man  who  had  led  a  regiment  of 


536 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


negroes,  by  boasting  that  they  had  “  buried  him  in  a  pit  under  his 
niggers.”  But  no  grave  could  be  dug  deep  enough  to  hide  the 
memory  of  the  young  hero.  He  could  not  lie  in  soil  so  poor  that 
the  remembrance  of  his  devotion  to  human  freedom  would  not 
spring  greenly  from  its  bosom. 

The  costly  knowledge  had  been  gained  that  it  was  useless  to  take 
Wagner  by  assault,  and  Gilmore  began  to  try  other  tactics.  Work¬ 
ing  patiently  by  day  over  the  swampy  land,  where  they  held  a 
position,  the  army  slowly  crawled  nearer  Wagner,  each  day  erecting 
batteries  a  little  nearer,  under  cover  of  the  earthworks  which  they 
made  at  night.  The  yellow  September  moon  revealed  them  at  work 
with  spade  and  axe,  and  guided  by  its  light,  the  guns  of  the  fort 
were  leveled  at  them,  often  with  deadly  aim.  Still  they  worked 
undauntedly  on.  In  one  place  in  the  slimy,  horrible  mud,  where 
a  man  could  sink  out  of  sight  and  be  buried  alive,  if  he  ventured  to 
tread  on  the  dangerous  surface,  they  drove  piles,  one  above  the 
other,  till  they  made  a  firm  foundation.  Oil  it  they  built  ramparts, 
and  set  up  a  huge  gun,  named  by  the  soldiers  “  The  Swamp  Angei.” 


The  Swamp  Angel. 

Thus  they  worked,  till  the  batteries  were  so  close  that  they  could 
send  balls  into  both  Wagner  and  Sumter.  Then  they  bombarded 
both,  till  Sumter  looked  like  a  smoking  ruin,  and  Wagner  was  bat¬ 
tered  helpless.  On  the  morning  of  the  7th  of  September  a  rebel 
deserter  brought  news  that  Wagner  was  empty ;  the  rebels  had 
evacuated  it  the  night  before.  On  the  8th  Gilmore’s  army 
marched  in  and  took  possession.  Our  flag  waved  once  again  in  the 
entrance  to  Charleston  harbor.  We  had  made  one  step  towards 
the  rebel  city. 


GUERRILLA  RAIDS. 


537 


CHAPTER  L. 

GUERRILLA  RAIDS. 

John  Morgan.  — Raid  into  Indiana.  —  A  Plucky  Colonel.  —  Ohio  at  Morgan’s  Mercy.  —  Cap¬ 
ture  of  Morgan.  —  Morgan’s  Escape  from  Prison.  —  Quantrell  and  his  Ruffians.  —  The  Sack 
of  Lawrence.  —  A  Hideous  Butchery. 

John  Morgan  had  been  a  guerrilla  chief  in  the  rebel  army  ever 
since  the  war  opened.  He  commanded  a  troop  of  horsemen  as  dar¬ 
ing  as  himself.  His  name  was  a  word  of  terror  to  Unionists  in  Ken¬ 
tucky,  where  he  had  made  several  raids,  stealing  the  horses  and 
everything  else  he  could  take  away.  In  the  summer  of  1863  he 
planned  the  most  daring  expedition  of  his  whole  career.  It  is  known 
as  Morgan's  raid  into  Indiana  and  Ohio. 

He  crossed  the  Cumberland  River  in  Tennessee  with  about  2,000 
thoroughly  armed  men  on  horseback,  and  began  his  march  across 
the  State  in  a  northeasterly  course  towards  Indiana.  On  the  4th  of 
July  his  troops  reined  up  in  front  of  a  little  post  protected  with 
felled  trees  and  earthworks  hastily  thrown  up,  behind  which  Colonel 
Moore  with  two  hundred  men  from  Michigan  had  intrenched  them¬ 
selves.  “  Surrender  !  ”  shouted  Morgan.  “  If  to-day  were  not  the 
Fourth  of  July,”  answered  the  plucky  colonel  inside  the  works,  “we 
might  take  time  to  think  of  surrender ;  ”  1  and  with  that  he  ordered 
such  a  sharp  defense  that  in  spite  of  his  greater  numbers  Morgan 
was  driven  away,  and  the  post  was  held  by  Colonel  Moore  and  his 
handful  of  brave  men. 

Morgan  went  next  to  a  post  at  Lebanon,  Kentucky,  where  a  stout 
resistance  was  made  by  Colonel  Hanson  commanding  there.  In  this 
attack  Morgan’s  younger  brother  was  killed.  Infuriated  by  his  death, 
his  men  set  fire  to  the  fort,  and  Hanson  was  forced  to  surrender.  On 
went  Morgan  through  Indiana,  reaching  that  State  about  the  middle 
of  July,  and  frightening  the  quiet  towns  there  unprepared  for  the 
presence  of  such  an  enemy,  almost  out  of  their  wits.  He  took  every¬ 
thing  away  that  he  could  carry,  burning  the  houses  he  had  sacked, 
trampling  down  the  crops,  and  destroying  what  he  could  not  take  with 
him.  The  railroads  were  torn  up,  and  telegraph  wires  cut  all  along 
their  march.  His  pathway  was  strewn  with  desolation  and  ruin  like 
that  left  by  a  tornado.  On  the  14th  he  crossed  into  Ohio,  seizing 
steamboats  to  convey  his  troops  over  the  river,  and  sweeping  across 

1  Greeley’s  American  Conflict  tells  this  incident.  Pollard,  in  The  Lost  Cause,  puts  the  same 
reply  into  the  mouth  of  Colonel  Hanson,  commanding  the  post  at  Lebanon. 


538 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


the  State  in  a  wide  half  circle,  above  Cincinnati,  a  town  which  was 
too  large  to  invade.  Morgan’s  passage  through  Ohio  was  marked  by 
the  same  destruction.  But  the  people  there  were  beginning  to 
muster.  When  he  reached  the  eastern  boundary  of  Ohio,  where  he 
intended  to  cross  the  river  into  Virginia,  and  join  his  friends  in  Lee’s 
army,  he  found  himself  in  hotter  quarters  than  were  comfortable. 
Gun-boats  were  coming  down  the  river  to  seize  him.  On  the  first 
attempt  of  his  troops  to  cross  to  Virginia,  several  hundred  of  his  men 
were  taken  prisoners.  Morgan,  with  the  remainder  of  his  troop, 
wandered  up  the  river,  seeking  a  safe  place  to  cross.  He  was  at  last 
brought  to  bay  on  a  high  bluff  on  the  bank,  and  gave  himself  up  to 
a  body  of  United  States  troops  who  had  hemmed  him  in.  He  was  at 
once  sent,  with  his  officers  captured  with  him,  to  the  Ohio  state 
prison,  where  their  historian  relates  that  “  they  were  shaved  and 
had  their  hair  cut  very  close  by  a  negro  barber.  They  were  then 
marched  to  the  bath-room  and  scrubbed,  and  from  thence  to  their 
cells,  and  locked  up.”  The  shaving,  liair-cutting,  and  scrubbing  in 
the  bath-tub,  is  mentioned  as  if  it  were  a  great  indignity.  But  as 
they  were  probably  very  dirty  after  their  long  raid,  it  was  no  more 
than  a  wholesome  precaution  to  take  before  admitting  them  into  a 
state  institution.  As  to  the  state  prison,  it  was  an  infinitely  healthier 
and  better  prison  than  any  of  those  in  which  our  national  soldiers 
were  confined  in  the  South.  Yet  Morgan,  who,  with  seven  of  his 
companions,  dug  out  a  passage  with  their  pocket-knives,  and  escaped, 
talked  bitterly  of  the  “  cruelty  of  the  Yankee  captors.” 

Another  guerrilla  raid,  made  shortly  after  Morgan’s,  shows  in 
much  darker  colors  on  the  page  of  history.  It  was  a  raid  into  the 
State  of  Kansas,  hated  by  all  the  rebels  since  the  fight  it  had  made 
to  keep  slavery  out  of  its  borders.  A  man  who  called  himself 
Quantrell,  although  the  name  was  probably  a  false  one,  used  as  a 
cloak  to  hide  his  crimes,  rode  across  the  line  into  Kansas  at  the  head 
of  a  band  of  “  border  ruffians  ”  from  Missouri.  Spurring  across  the 
undulating  prairie,  peaceful  and  fertile,  they  entered  the  town  of 
Lawrence,  which  had  been  the  favorite  town  of  the  “  free-state  ” 
people  ever  since  the  days  of  John  Brown  and  the  Kansas  war.  By 
this  time  —  the  month  of  August,  1863  —  it  had  grown  to  be  a 
pleasant  town,  built  like  a  New  England  village,  with  broad  streets, 
bordered  with  pretty  houses,  interspersed  with  church  spires  and 
school-house  belfries,  which  rose  over  the  house  roofs  like  landmarks- 
set  to  show  the  growth  of  piety  and  intelligence  on  this  new  free 
soil. 


GUERRILLA  RAIDS 


539 

Into  this  town,  peaceful  as  Paradise,  quiet  as  a  Sabbath-day, 
Quantrell  entered,  with  his  troop  of  ruffians  at  his  back,  hooting 
and  yelling  like  a  pack  of  painted  savages.  In  a  moment  the 
peaceful  scene  was  changed  to  one  of  wildest  horror.  Houses  were 
burned ;  stores  plundered ;  citizens  robbed  and  murdered.  The 
German  and  negro  residents,  especially,  were  killed  without  mercy. 
Women  plead  in  vain  for  the  lives  of  fathers,  sons,  husbands,  over 
their  very  bodies.  Men  were  shot,  and  while  still  alive  their  houses 
were  fired,  and  their  bodies  burned  in  the  flames.  There  was  no 
resistance ;  the  surprise  had  been  too  great :  it  was  simply  a 


Lawrence,  after  Quantrell's  Raid. 


butchery.  When  the  murderers  left  the  town,  one  hundred  and 
forty  citizens  had  been  slaughtered.  Their  bodies  lay  in  the  pools  of 
blood  in  streets  and  door  yards,  or  had  become  a  charred  mass  of 
flesh  and  bones  among  the  ruins  of  their  homes. 

The  raid  of  Quantrell  was  not  an  attack  of  soldiers  upon  armed 
men  ;  it  was  a  descent  of  bandits  upon  a  defenseless  town.  Let  us 
hope,  for  the  honor  of  civilized  warfare,  that  it  was  not  an  author¬ 
ized  expedition ;  and  that  it  was  made  by  a  robber,  in  the  interests 
of  plunder  and  private  malignity.1 

1  Pollard’s  Lost  Cause  (the  best  Southern  history  of  the  war)  does  not  mention  Quantrell 
among  their  officers  ;  and  it  is  but  just  to  suppose  that  the  generals  of  the  army  of  the  rebel- 
.'ion  would  not  have  countenanced  or  permitted  such  an  outrage  as  the  attack  on  Lawrence. 


540 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


CHAPTER  LI. 

CHATTANOOGA  AND  LOOKOUT  MOUNTAIN. 

Chattanooga  Valley.  —  The  Gateway  of  the  Mountains. — Mission  Ridge. — Defeat  of  Union 
Troops.  —  “Hold  Chattanooga,  or  starve.”  —  Battle  in  the  Clouds.  —  The  Rebels’  last 
stand.  — Victory  for  the  Nation. 

After  Bragg  was  driven  from  Murfreesboro’,  in  January,  1863, 
he  stopped  again  at  Tullahoma,  in  the  southern  part  of  Tennessee, 
while  Rosecrans  with  his  army  remained  at  Murfreesboro’.  Both 
generals  had  been  looking  towards  Chattanooga,  a  little  town  lying 
in  a  gateway  of  the  mountains,  very  near  the  line  between  Ten¬ 
nessee  and  Georgia.  In  June,  after  a  rest  of  almost  six  months, 
Rosecrans  began  a  march  thither.  Almost  at  that  same  time  Bragg 
began  a  retreat  from  Tullahoma.  Rosecrans  approached,  and  Bragg 
retreated,  till  the  rebel  army  was  concentrated  in  Chattanooga.  It 
was  their  last  stronghold  in  Tennessee.  You  have  marked  how 
they  have  gradually  been  driven  from  Kentucky,  through  Tennessee, 
till  they  are  now  on  the  very  borders  of  Georgia.  At  the  same  time 
that  Rosecrans  approached  Chattanooga,  General  Burnside,  who 
had  been  sent  to  take  a  command  in  the  West,  approached  from 
Cincinnati  upon  Knoxville,  one  of  the  centres  of  East  Tennessee, 
and  driving  the  rebel  Buckner  (the  same  who  surrendered  at  Fort 
Donelson)  from  that  city,  planted  the  Union  flag  in  Knoxville.  For 
months  the  people  had  been  forced  to  hide  the  dear  flag,  and  now, 
all  at  once,  in  the  track  of  Burnside’s  army,  the  whole  soil  seemed  to 
blossom  with  the  nation’s  tri-color,  as  if  they  had  been  planted  for 
a  season,  and  a  crop  of  them  had  just  sprung  up.  Tennessee  held 
many  ardent  patriots  who  had  suffered  for  their  love  of  country 
more  than  the  people  of  any  other  State.  We  can  never  honor  too 
much  the  loyalists  of  Tennessee.  Many  of  them  wept  with  delight 
when  they  saw  our  soldiers  marching  to  Knoxville,  and  the  joyous 
people  crowded  to  press  on  the  soldier  all  they  had  of  food  or 
luxury,  robbing  themselves  even  of  their  scanty  fare  to  give  to  the 
“defenders  of  the  Union.” 

Rosecrans  reached  Chattanooga  to  find  it  empty.  Bragg  had 
gone  over  the  boundary  line  of  Georgia,  and  was  strengthening 
himself  for  a  battle  in  the  town  of  Lafayette,  only  a  few  miles 
distant. 

The  town  of  Chattanooga  lies  at  the  head  of  a  pleasant  valley 


CHATTANOOGA  AND  LOOKOUT  MOUNTAIN. 


541 


watered  by  Chattanooga  Creek.  On  the  west  of  the  valley  is  Look¬ 
out  Mountain ;  on  the  east  is  Mission  Ridge,  an  irregular  hill  on 
which  once  stood  an  Indian  mission  church.  Still  east  of  Mission 
Ridge  lies  another  valley,  through  which  runs  Chickamauga  Creek. 


Lookout  Mountain,  and  Chattanooga  Valley. 


These  valleys,  green  as  the  suns  and  rains  of  summer  could  paint 
them,  were  to  be  the  last  battle-grounds  for  the  possession  of  Ten¬ 
nessee. 

Bragg  had  all  the  men  that  the  other  rebel  commanders  could 
possibly  spare  him.  Lee,  who  had  learned  by  his  long  success  not 
to  fear  very  greatly  the  Union  army  in  Virginia,  had  sent  rein¬ 
forcements  to  him  under  General  Longstreet ;  Buckner  had  come 
to  join  him  on  his  retreat  from  Knoxville  ;  Johnston  had  sent  all 
the  men  he  could  spare  from  Mississippi ;  and  thus  Bragg’s  army 
now  largely  outnumbered  that  of  Rosecrans,  encamped  at  Chat¬ 
tanooga. 

Early  in  September  the  armies  began  again  to  approach  each  other. 
On  the  9th  of  that  month,  a  part  of  Bragg’s  advance,  posted  on 
Lookout  Mountain,  could  survey  the  army  of  Rosecrans,  in  the 
valley  town  of  Chattanooga  below,  and  almost  count  his  numbers. 
On  the  19th  of  September,  in  the  valley  of  Chickamauga,  the  contest 
began. 

For  two  days  the  fight  raged  on  the  borders  of  that  little  stream. 
It  ended  in  a  terrible  defeat  to  Rosecrans,  who  withdrew  to  Chatta¬ 
nooga  on  the  evening  of  the  20th,  with  16,000  men  killed,  wounded, 
and  missing.  16,000  men !  That  would  have  been  a  large  army 
in  the  Revolutionary  War.  In  those  days  they  counted  their  dead 
only  by  tens  or  hundreds  ;  to-day  we  count  them  by  thousands. 


542 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


Rosecrans  was  blamed  at  Washington  for  his  defeat,  and  although 
he  was  a  brave  soldier,  and  up  to  this  time  had  been  a  successful 
one,  Halleck  at  once  deposed  him,  and  General  George  H.  Thomas, 
who  had  held  a  post  under  him,  took  command  of  the  Army  of  the 
Cumberland.  Grant,  who  united  under  his  command  all  the  Western 
armies,  came  on  to  Chattanooga  to  look  at  matters  with  his  own  eyes. 
Up  to  this  time  we  owed  our  best  successes  to  this  quiet  general,  who 
had  taken  Donelson  and  Vicksburg.  He  now  came  to  confer  with 
Thomas,  ordering  General  Sherman,  who  was  his  strong  right  arm 
in  battle,  to  come  and  aid  the  Army  of  the  Cumberland.  That  army 
was  in  somewhat  desperate  straits.  Their  supplies  were  nearly 
cut  off  by  Bragg,  and  it  was  almost  impossible  even  to  get  half¬ 
rations  for  the  men  and  horses  into  Chattanooga.  Before  Grant 
reached  Thomas, he  telegraphed  him,  “Hold  Chattanooga.”  Thomas 
telegraphed  briefly,  “  I  will  hold  it,  or  starve.” 

It  was  the  24th  of  October  when  Grant  arrived,  and  at  once  set 
to  work  to  plan  the  relief  of  the  army.  General  Hooker,  with  two 
corps,  had  been  sent  to  reinforce  Thomas.  His  men  were  fresh,  de¬ 
moralized  neither  by  defeat  nor  victory.  They  were  sent  at  once  to 
take  a  ferry  on  the  Tennessee.  Holding  that  point,  they  could 
reopen  the  river,  send  their  boats  loaded  with  provisions  to  the 
shores  near  Chattanooga,  thus  relieving  all  fears  of  starvation.  This 
was  done  quickly.  Although  the  rebels  made  a  strong  resistance,  they 
were  overcome,  driven  back  to  Lookout  Mountain,  and  the  Union-, 
ists  held  a  foothold  on  the  south  bank  of  the  Tennessee. 

Almost  a  month  of  quiet  passed  here,  Thomas’s  army  all  the 
time  increasing ;  while  Bragg,  who  had  stripped  the  rebel  armies 
east  and  west  of  him,  before  the  Chickamauga  battle,  could  raise  no 
more  men.  Thomas,  with  Sherman  and  Hooker  as  his  right  and 
left  hand,  and  Grant  to  counsel  and  command,  prepared  for  the 
battle  of  Chattanooga. 

As  he  was  getting  ready,  an  insolent  message  came  from  Bragg, 
advising  him  to  withdraw  from  the  place.  Alas,  for  Bragg  !  His 
star  is  already  descending,  and  will  soon  be  out  of  sight. 

On  the  24th  of  November  Hooker  went  ahead  to  drive  the  enemy 
from  Lookout  Mountain.  It  was  a  misty  day,  and  the  top  of  the 
mountain  was  so  covered  with  clouds  that  it  could  not  be  seen. 
The  clouds  favored  the  approach  of  Hooker’s  men,  who  clambered 
up  the  steep  sides  of  Lookout  as  if  they  were  sure  of  victory.  On 
the  top  they  fell  upon  the  enemy  like  a  whirlwind,  sweeping  them 


CHATTANOOGA  AND  LOOKOUT  MOUNTAIN. 


543 


over  the  precipice  on  the  eastern  side,  and  driving  them  down  pell- 
mell,  amid  gulleys  and  steeps,  into  the  valley  below.  Grant,  watch¬ 
ing  the  battle  from  an  eminence  called  Orchard  Knob,  lost  sight  of 
this  army  as  they  disappeared  in  the  clouds  on  Lookout,  and  could 
only  see  them  now  and  then,  as  the  mists  parted  for  an  instant. 
Some  one  has  called  this  “  The  Battle  in  the  Clouds.”  It  was  a 
happy  day  when  the  boys  in  blue  issued  from  the  misty  eyrie,  pur¬ 
suing  the  retreating  enemy  into  Chattanooga  Valley. 

Next  morning  the  rebels  were  posted  on  Mission  Ridge.  They 
had  burned  behind  them  the  bridge  over  Chattanooga  Creek,  and 
Hooker  was  obliged  to  wait  and  build  it  before  he  could  cross  to 
renew  the  attack.  But  Sherman  was  now  on  hand,  ready  to  win 
his  share  of  glory.  He  advanced  early  in  the  morning  over  the 
row  of  ridges  covered  with  hastily  felled  trees,  behind  which  the 
rebels  were  preparing  a  desperate  defense.  Sherman  was  alone 
in  this  attack.  Hooker  was  busy  at  bridge-building,  and  Grant 
was  waiting  for  Hooker’s  advance,  as  the  signal  to  send  Thomas 
forward. 

After  a  fight  which  lasted  from  early  morning  till  three  o’clock 
in  the  afternoon,  it  seemed  an  even  chance  between  victory  and 
defeat  with  our  brave  Sherman,  when  four  of  Thomas’s  divisions  at 
length  joined  him.  One  of  these  divisions  was  led  by  Phil.  Sheri¬ 
dan,  one  of  the  heroes  of  our  victory  at  Murfreesboro’.  This  aid  to 
Sherman  was  enough.  It  was  almost  night  when  they  appeared 
and  charged  up  Mission  Ridge.  The  enemy  were  driven  from  their 
position,  and  began  a  disorderly  run  down  to  Cliickamauga  Valley. 
That  night  Lookout  Mountain,  Chattanooga  Valley,  and  Mission 
Ridge  were  all  held  by  our  army.  Next  day,  Sherman  and  Hooker 
pursued  the  flying  rebels.  At  Ringgold,  part  of  the  fugitives  turned 
upon  Hooker,  and  gave  battle  for  a  short  time,  then  turned  again  to 
retreat ;  we  had  driven  them  fairly  from  Tennessee,  and  Thomas 
returned  to  Georgia,  to  send  troops  to  the  relief  of  Burnside,  who 
was  suffering  a  siege  in  Knoxville. 

During  the  month  of  October,  in  the  rest  which  the  armies  took 
between  these  two  battles  of  Cliickamauga  and  Chattanooga ,  Bragg 
had  sent  the  corps  of  Longstreet,  lent  him  from  Lee’s  army  in  Vir¬ 
ginia,  to  drive  Burnside  out  of  Knoxville.  Longstreet  had  been  for 
a  month  before  the  town,  making  cautious  approaches  towards  a 
siege.  On  the  28tli  of  November  he  made  a  desperate  assault  on 
Fort  Saunders,  an  outpost  of  Knoxville,  in  which  he  was  so  strongly 

35 


544 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


repulsed,  that  he  gave  up  the  idea  of  taking  the  town,  and  went 
back  to  Virginia.  Just  after  this  the  troops  sent  by  Thomas  from 
Chattanooga  arrived,  and  Knoxville  was  from  that  time  safe. 


CHAPTER  LII. 

KILPATRICK’S  RAID. 

Prison  Pens.  —  Their  Horrors. — Kilpatrick  and  Dahlgren. — Dahlgren  lost  in  the  Woods. — 
Shot  from  an  Ambush.  — Robbing  his  Body.  — Return  of  Kilpatrick. 

The  horrors  of  the  Southern  prisons,  where  our  men  taken  in 
battle  were  shut  up  to  die  lingering  and  fearful  deaths,  can  never 
be  fully  realized.  Something  of  their  misery  may  be  guessed  by 
the  numbers  who  died  there.  They  were  rightly  named  “  prison 
pens.”  In  many  instances  these  places  consisted  of  a  great  stock¬ 
ade,  like  that  in  which  cattle  are  penned.  In  this  our  men  were 
herded,  often  without  tents  or  shelter,  exposed  to  the  burning  suns, 
pelting  rains,  and  stinging  frosts  of  the  varying  seasons.  With 
forests  all  about  them,  they  were  not  allowed  to  build  huts  to  cover 
them.  In  a  country  where  grain  and  vegetables  were  rotting  for 
want  of  means  to  get  them  to  market,  they  were  deliberately  starved 
to  death.  In  these  Southern  prisons  at  Richmond,  Charleston,  An- 
dersonville,  Salisbury,  men  lost  their  reason  and  went  mad  from  de¬ 
spair.  Inside  the  pen  or  stockade  was  often  a  fence  or  paling  which 
marked  the  “  dead  line.”  This  was  so  called  because  the  guards 
were  ordered  to  shoot  any  prisoner  who  crossed  the  barrier.  Some¬ 
times  the  guard  amused  themselves  by  picking  off  prisoners  with 
their  rifles,  who  had  incautiously  approached  this  limit  so  that  a 
fold  of  their  ragged  garments  or  an  outstretched  hand  was  seen  out¬ 
side  the  line.  It  is  too  painful  to  remember  what  our  soldiers  suf¬ 
fered  in  these  prisons.  For  almost  four  years  their  cry  for  help 
sounded  in  the  ears  of  the  loyal  people  whose  battles  they  had  gone 
out  to  fight. 

In  February,  1864,  General  Kilpatrick,  who  had  under  his  com¬ 
mand  a  body  of  splendid  cavalry  belonging  to  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac,  started  on  a  raid  to  Richmond.  His  object  was  the  re¬ 
lease  of  the  prisoners  there.  It  was  a  daring  enterprise,  and  there 
was  little  hope  of  its  success.  Our  men  in  the  rebel  capital  were 
confined  in  what  was  known  as  “  Libby  Prison .”  It  was  a  large 


KILPATRICK’S  RAID. 


545 


brick  building,  once  used  as  a  tobacco  warehouse,  but  since  the  war 
turned  into  a  prison.  Here  our  soldiers,  although  sheltered  from 
the  weather,  suffered  all  the  horrors  that  filth  and  starvation  could 
inflict. 

Kilpatrick  left  the  main  army  on  the  28th  of  February,  and  took 
a  direct  line  towards  Richmond.  Arrived  at  Spottsylvania  Court 
House,  afterwards  the  scene  of  a  battle,  he  divided  his  force.  The 
smaller  party,  about  five  hundred  in  number,  were  led  by  Colonel 
Ulric  Dahlgren,  a  son  of  the  admiral  now  in  command  of  the  gun- 


Libby  Prison. 


boats  near  Charleston.  Colonel  Dahlgren  was  sent  to  cross  the 
James  River,  and  come  up  to  attack  Richmond  from  the  south,  while 
Kilpatrick  came  down  upon  it  from  the  other  side. 

Kilpatrick  went  on,  tearing  up  railway  lines,  cutting  telegraph 
wires,  and  doing  all  the  mischief  he  could,  after  Morgan’s  fashion  in 
Indiana.  By  the  1st  of  March,  he  was  within  three  and  a  half 
miles  of  Richmond,  waiting  eagerly  to  hear  Dahlgren’s  guns  booming 
their  signal  from  the  south.  But  he  waited  in  vain.  Young  Dahl¬ 
gren  had  met  only  with  misfortune,  and  at  that  moment  his  body 
lay  stark  and  unburied  in  the  woods  not  far  distant. 

Dahlgren  did  not  know  the  roads  of  the  country,  and  after  leav¬ 
ing  Kilpatrick  had  taken  a  negro  guide.  The  negro  led  them  the 
wrong  way,  and  Dahlgren’s  men  discovering  this,  believed  him  to  be 
false,  and  hanged  him  in  the  forest  through  which  they  were  jour- 


546 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


neying.  Traveling  in  a  hostile  country,  almost  entirely  ignorant 
of  their  way  they  did  not  cross  the  James,  but  touched  the  outer 
lines  of  Richmond  the  day  after  Kilpatrick  arrived  there,  in  a  direc¬ 
tion  west  of  him.  It  was  dark,  and  the  rain  fell  like  a  deluge.  In 
the  storm  and  darkness  Dahlgren  and  about  one  hundred  of  his  men 
were  separated  from  the  main  body.  A  party  of  boys,  led  by  their 

warlike  school-master,  had  formed 
a  company  of  militia  and  lay  in 
ambush  in  the  wood  through 
which  the  lost  party  strayed.  A 
volley  from  these  concealed  foes 
struck  young  Dahlgren  dead,  at 
the  same  time  wounding  several 
of  his  companions.  Those  who 
escaped  the  bullets  wandered 
about  all  night,  and  were  next 

Fortu- 
of  the 


Bullet-proof  in  Woods. 


morning  taken  prisoners, 
nately  the  main  body 


company  were  on  the  road  toward  home,  and  next  morning  reached 
the  Union  lines. 

As  one  of  these  youthful  militia  was  robbing  Dahlgren’s  body  of 
his  watch  and  other  valuables,  he  found  on  his  person  his  papers  of 
instruction  relating  to  the  plan  for  the  liberation  of  the  prisoners  in 
Richmond,  the  purpose  of  the  raid.  The  rebel  newspapers  circulated 
a  report  that  the  papers  revealed  a  dark  plot  to  capture  and  murder 
Jefferson  Davis  and  his  associates  in  Richmond.  Dahlgren’s  body 
was  treated  with  every  indignity.  The  South  rang  with  accounts  of 
the  “  Yankee  plot ;  ”  and  several  barrels  of  gunpowder  were  placed 
under  Libby  Prison  with  orders  to  blow  it  up  at  once  if  any  at¬ 
tempt  at  rescue  or  escape  were  made. 

Kilpatrick,  hearing  nothing  of  Dahlgren,  and  finding  that  the 
enemy  had  become  aware  of  his  approach  to  Richmond,  fell  back  to 
the  east.  He  was  met  by  a  force  sent  by  General  Butler  from  For¬ 
tress  Monroe,  and  soon  joined  the  main  arjny.  Thus  ended  the 
futile  attempt  to  free  the  Union  prisoners  at  Richmond. 


GRANT  IN  VIRGINIA. 


547 


CHAPTER  LIII. 

GRANT  IN  VIRGINIA. 

Old  Virginia. — Lincoln’s  Passes  to  Richmond. — First  Meeting  of  Grant  and  Lincoln. — A 
Baulky  Team.  —  Hard  Times  in  Richmond.  —  The  Wilderness.  —  “  Grant  not  a  Retreating 
Man.”  > —  Slow  “  Hammering.”  —  “We  will  fight  it  out  on  this  Line.” 

Early  in  tlie  war  Governor  Pickens  of  South  Carolina  had  said 
to  his  State,  “  You  may  plant  your  cotton  in  peace,  old  Virginia 
will  have  to  bear  the  brunt  of  battle.”  The  North  had  taken  up 
this  prophecy,  and  some  patriotic  stationer  had  printed  a  Union  en¬ 


velope,  bearing  the  picture  of  an  old  woman  bowed  on  her  staff, 
while  over  her  back  two  opposing  armies  rushed  to  battle.  The 
words  of  Governor  Pickens  had  come  true.  Thus  far,  the  deadliest 
warfare,  the  fiercest  slaughter,  has  raged  in  Virginia,  and  it  con¬ 
tinued  to  be  so,  till  the  rebels  in  Virginia  had  drank  to  the  depths 
the  bitter  cup  of  secession. 

The  two  watch-words  of  the  year  1864  were,  “  On  to  Richmond,” 
and  “  On  to  Atlanta.”  The  first  had  been  the  war-cry  of  the 
“  Army  of  the  Potomac  ”  ever  since  it  began  to  muster  its  hosts  in 
the  field.  The  second  cry  was  only  raised  after  the  enemy  had 
been  swept  from  his  last  foothold  in  Kentucky  and  Tennessee,  and 
driven  to  Georgia. 

You  have  seen  by  this  time  that  while  the  story  of  the  army  of 
the  West  had  been  one  of  success  since  the  line  of  the  rebel  army 
gave  way  in  Kentucky,  after  the  taking  of  Donelson,  the  story  of 


548 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


the  East  had  been  one  of  defeat  only.  Thousands  of  men  had  been 
lost  in  the  swamps  of  the  Peninsula,  and  in  the  valleys  of  the  Rapi- 
dan  and  the  Rappahannock,  yet  our  army  was  no  nearer  Richmond 
in  the  spring  of  1864  than  when  it  first  started  forth  bent  on  vic¬ 
tory.  You  have  seen  general  succeed  general,  at  the  head  of  this 
grand  army,  failure  succeed  failure  in  its  attempts  to  push  on  to¬ 
wards  the  rebel  capital. 

Somebody  asked  President  Lincoln,  about  these  days,  for  a  pass 
to  Richmond. 

“  I  should  be  glad  to  oblige  you,”  said  the  president,  u  but  my 
passes  are  not  respected.  I  have  given  passes  to  an  army  of  a 
quarter  of  a  million,  and  not  one  has  got  there  except  as  prisoners 
of  war.” 

In  the  beginning  of  1864,  Lincoln,  who  was  made  daily  more 
worried  and  anxious  by  the  long  and  cruel  series  of  defeats  so  near 
our  capital,  began  to  make  more  earnest  inquiries  about  that  silent 
general  out  West,  named  U.  S.  Grant,  who  was  famous  for  saying 
nothing,  and  for  doing  a  great  deal.  This  Grant  had  taken  Donel- 
son  ;  had  taken  Vicksburg ;  had  come  down  to  Chattanooga  and 
redeemed  the  defeat  of  the  Chickamauga.  He  asked  little  of  the 
war  department ;  wrote  no  long  dispatches  to  government  ;  gave 
only  short  orders  to  his  officers  ;  and  made  very  brief  speeches  to 
his  men.  Already  the  sound  of  his  name  caused  a  chorus  of  cheers 
all  over  the  loyal  North  wherever  it  was  mentioned.  Could  it  be- 
possible  that  the  long  looked  for  leader,  the  man  for  whom  we  had 
sought  three  years,  could  be  this  quiet  cigar-smoking  soldier,  who, 
although  educated  at  West  Point,  had  been  only  a  clerk  in  a  leather 
store  in  Illinois,  when  the  war  began  ? 

“  There  is  the  right  sort  of  stuff  in  this  western  major-general,” 
said  Lincoln.  “  I  should  like  to  take  a  look  at  this  little  man.” 
All  at  once,  in  the  spring  of  1864,  Congress  passed  a  resolution 
making  him  lieutenant-general  of  the  United  States  armies,  and 
summoning  him  to  take  command  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac. 
Grant  came  on  to  Washington,  and  the  two  men  —  Abraham 
Lincoln,  President  of  the  United  States,  and  U.  S.  Grant,  General- 
in-chief  of  its  armies  —  shook  hands  for  the  first  time. 

And  now  General  Grant  went  to  survey  the  Army  of  the  Po¬ 
tomac.  He  had  before  him  an  enemy  that  believed  itself  invin¬ 
cible,  with  a  leader  whose  name  inspired  victory.  A  long  list  of 
generals,  McClellan,  Burnside,  Pope,  Hooker,  Meade,  had  preceded 


GRANT  IN  VIRGINIA. 


549 


him,  and  from  the  chief-generalship  had  sunk  into  obscurity.  It 
was  a  trying  position  for  a  new  comer,  and  Grant  saw  its  dif¬ 
ficulties. 

By  this  time  he  had  learned  that  this  war  was  not  a  common  one, 
in  the  temper  of  the  adversaries  who  met  upon  its  battle-fields.  It 
was  American  fighting  American ;  it  was  a  struggle  between  men 
of  about  the  same  degree  of  physical  prowess,  with  leaders  taught  in 
the  same  schools,  and  educated  together  in  the  arts  of  war.  And 
thus  far  the  army  of  Lee,  holding  the  advantage  of  position,  and 
knowing  well  every  inch  of  ground  it  occupied,  had  been  able  to  use 
this  knowledge  against  larger  forces.  Grant  saw  that  to  defeat  this 
advantage  we  must  use  new  means.  “  So  far,”  he  said  in  summing 
up  the  matter,  “  our  armies  have  acted  without  concert,  like  a 
baulky  team,  no  two  ever  pulling  together.  I  have  now  determined 
to  use  the  greatest  number  of  troops  practicable  against  the  armed 
force  of  the  enemy,  and  to  hammer  continuously  against  him,  until 
by  mere  attrition,  if  no  other  way,  there  shall  be  nothing  left  him 
but  an  equal  submission  with  the  loyal  part  of  our  common  country 
to  the  constitution  and  laws.”  And  having  made  an  uncommonly 
long  speech  for  him,  Grant  began  his  “  hammering,”  first  announc¬ 
ing,  with  Biblical  eloquence,  “  wherever  Lee  goes,  I  am  going  also.” 

When  Grant  came  to  the  field  Lee  was  on  the  line  of  the  Rapidan 
River,  and  Meade  was  in  his  winter-quarters  on  the  line  of  the  Rap¬ 
pahannock.  The  rebel  army,  as  great  as  was  its  confidence  in  its 
ability  to  fight,  was  no  doubt  getting  somewhat  shaken  by  want  of 
supplies.  One  of  its  historians  says  that  the  men  had  only  an  allow¬ 
ance  of  a  quarter  of  a  pound  of  meat  to  a  man  per  day.  The  little 
cabal  in  Richmond  which  called  itself  the  “  Government  of  the  South¬ 
ern  Confederacy,”  was  in  want  of  money.  The  Southern  women, 
whose  sympathies  were  with  secession,  had  been  fertile  in  plans  for 
raising  money.  One  fair  political  economist  had  suggested  that 
every  woman,  whose  heart  was  in  the  cause  of  the  Southern  Con¬ 
federacy,  should  cut  off  her  hair  and  sell  it  to  raise  funds  for  the 
army.  Another  had  suggested  that  all  her  sex  should  contribute 
their  jewels,  silver,  and  other  valuables  to  the  sacred  cause,  and  ac¬ 
cordingly  the  Richmond  newspapers  published  daily  a  list  of  ear¬ 
rings,  brooches,  silver  teapots,  spoons,  and  cream-pitchers,  sent  in  as 
contributions  to  the  government  of  Jefferson  Davis.1  I  do  not  tell 
these  things  to  laugh  at  them.  They  would  be  glorious  in  a  people 


1  See  Pollard’s  Lost  Cause,. 


550 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


who  fought  for  freedom;  in  a  misguided  section  fighting  to  rivet 
tighter  the  chains  on  the  slave,  and  destroy  the  freest  nation  on 
which  the  sun  shone,  they  are  sad  as  tragedy  itself. 

When  Grant  took  command,  he  divided  the  army  under  Meade 
into  three  corps,  commanded  by  Generals  Sedgwick,  Warren,  and 
Hancock.  Burnside  had  been  sent  to  join  it,  with  a  separate  army, 
but  was  sogn  blended  into  the  “  Army  of  the  Potomac.”  The  val¬ 
leys  of  Western  Virginia  were  guarded  by  General  Sigel  with  his 
“  Army  of  the  Shenandoah,”  and  at  Fortress  Monroe,  where  Gen¬ 
eral  Benjamin  Butler  was  again  in  command,  another  army  was 
stationed  ready  to  obey  the  call  of  the  lieutenant-general.  Grant 
visited  all  these  armies  before  he  prepared  for  action. 

On  the  3d  of  May  the  Union  army  left  its  camps  and  crossed  the 
Rapidan,  over  which  Lee  had  driven  Hooker  the  year  before.  For 
the  first  time  it  moved  under  the  lead  of  a  man  who  would  not  be 
driven  back,  beaten  or  not  beaten.  Almost  at  the  same  moment 
Lee’s  army  also  began  to  move.  The  Unionists  came  from  the  north ; 
the  rebels  from  the  east,  making  a  great  right  angle.  The  point 
of  this  angle  met  on  the  battle-field  of  “  The  Wilderness.” 

The  Wilderness  was  well  named.  It  was  a  thick  and  matted 
growth  of  scrub  oaks,  dwarf  pines,  hazel,  and  sassafras  bushes, 

hardly  higher  at  any 
point  than  a  man’s 
breast.  Through  it 
ran  a  network  of  roads 
and  paths,  known  to 
the  enemy,  unknown 
to  the  Union  army. 
Grant  had  hoped  to 
pass  through  this  place 
before  meeting  Lee, 
and  fight  him  on 
a  clean  battle-ground 
beyond.  But  Lee 
knew  too  much  to 
permit  that.  On  the 
morning  of  May  5th, 
just  as  Grant  reached 
the  edge  of  the  Wilder- 

Grant's  Head-quarters  in  the  Wilderness.  neSS,  llis  SCOUtS  Came 


GRANT  IN  VIRGINIA. 


551 


in  to  tell  him  that  the  undergrowth  was  thick  with  rebel  batteries  ; 
that  rebel  soldiers  lurked  everywhere  in  its  matted  ambush.  The 
enemy  had  chosen  the  ground,  and  the  Union  army  must  fight  or 
retreat.  There  was  no  talk  of  retreat,  and  on  the  morning  of  May 
5th  the  ball  opened.  Such  a  fight  as  it  was  that  day.  The  men 
struggled  through  the  tangled  bushes,  to  be  fired  at  by  unseen  foes. 
They  fell  by  thousands,  and  a  constant  procession  issued,  hour  after 
hour,  from  out  the  wood,  carrying  stretchers  on  which  the  dead  and 
wounded  were  borne  back  to 
the  rear.  On  the  bloodiest 
scene  of  the  war  the  merciful 
darkness  fell.  Neither  side  was 
ready  to  yield.  Lee  was  look¬ 
ing  anxiously  for  Longstreet, 
recently  arrived  from  Tennessee, 
whom  he  relied  on  to  reinforce 
him.  To  his  great  joy  Long- 
street  came  up  a  little  after  mid¬ 
night,  and  together  the  two 
rebel  officers  planned  the  next 
day’s  battle.  Longstreet  advised  the  attack  at  two  in  the  morning, 
before  the  Union  army  were  awake  ;  but  Grant  had  laid  his  plans 
for  nearly  the  same  hour,  and  both  armies  were  in  arms  at  almost 
the  same  moment  next  morning.  Burnside  had  come  to  Grant’s  aid 
in  the  night,  and  the  position  was  the  same  as  the  day  before. 

Still  another  day  of  slaughter ;  the  sun  pouring  down  on  the  field 
in  midsummer  heat,  torturing  the  ’wounded  with  thirst,  and  making 
the  long  day  seem  like  an  eternity  to  the  contending  armies.  Long¬ 
street,  stopping  a  moment  on  the  road  in  the  middle  of  a  deadly  fire, 
to  greet  an  old  friend  whom  he  had  not  seen  since  his  return  from 
Tennessee,  was  dangerously  wounded  by  his  own  men  and  carried 
from  the  field.  His  loss  disconcerted  the  rebels,  although  they 
fought  on  bravely.  Again  night  fell,  leaving  two  bruised  and 
shattered  armies  equally  unwilling  to  admit  failure. 

The  next  day  was  Saturday.  There  were  orders  given  in  the 
Union  army  to  break  up  the  camps.  After  every  such  battle  as 
that  of  the  Wilderness,  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  had  fallen  back 
from  its  position.  One  of  his  officers  said  to  Lee,  “  I  think  Grant 
is  retreating.”  Lee  always  showed  great  wisdom  in  judging  of  the 
character  of  the  general  opposed  to  him.  When  his  officer  made 


552 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


this  remark,  he  said,  “  I  think  Grant  is  not  retreating  ;  he  is  not  a 
retreating  man.” 

When  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  heard  it  was  to  go  forward  instead 
of  back,  bruised  and  tired  and  sore  as  it  was  from  fight,  such  a 
chorus  of  cheers  went  up  as  would  have  deafened  ears  not  used  to 
the  roar  of  artillery. 

On  they  went  with  faces  toward  Richmond.  The  two  armies 
moved  with  equal  rapidity.  After  a  march  of  twelve  miles,  the 
Union  advance  was  checked.  Lee’s  army  had  thrown  itself  again 
across  the  path,  intrenched  behind  some  fresh  earthworks  at  Spott- 
sylvania  Court  House.  It  was  now  Monday,  the  9th  of  May.  After 
a  brief  delay,  in  which  the  lines  were  formed  in  order,  the  fight 
began.  Little  by  little  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  gained  on  Lee’s 
army.  But  it  was  slow  “  hammering,”  like  steel  pounding  on  steel. 
To  all  despairing  questions  Grant  had  only  one  answer,  “We  are 
going  through  to  Richmond.  There  is  no  doubt  about  that.” 

On  Wednesday  morning  there  was  another  lull  in  the  battle.  Go¬ 
ing  to  his  tent  Grant  wrote  back  to  Lincoln,  who  was  waiting  with 
intense  anxiety  for  news  from  the  army  :  “  The  result  at  this  time  is 
much  in  our  favor.  I  propose  to  fight  it  out  on  this  line ,  if  it  takes 
all  summer .” 

In  the  mean  time  General  Butler  had  moved  from  Fortress  Mon¬ 
roe,  according  to  Grant’s  orders,  to  come  up  the  James  River  and  be 
ready  to  strike  Richmond  on  the  south,  as  the  Army  of  the  Potomac 
came  from  the  northeast.  Beauregard  was  in  Richmond,  strength¬ 
ening  the  place  for  the  coming  struggle.  When  he  saw  Butler  com¬ 
ing,  he  came  out  of  his  defense  and  drove  him  back  into  his  intrench- 
ments  on  the  river,  rendering  him  unable  to  move  until  the  main 
army  could  come  to  join  him.  Grant,  who  had  a  habit  of  using 
homely  comparisons,  which  everybody  could  understand,  wrote  that 
“  Butler’s  army,  although  safe,  is  as  completely  shut  off  from  further 
operations  against  Richmond,  as  if  it  had  been  in  a  bottle  strongly 
corked.” 


SHERIDAN’S  RIDE. 


553 


CHAPTER  LIY. 

SHERIDAN’S  RIDE. 

General  Phil.  Sheridan.  —  Jubal  Early’s  Raid.  —  Sheridan  “  Goes  in.”  —  The  Ride  from  Win¬ 
chester.  —  The  Army  settles  round  Petersburg.  —  A  Mine  exploded.  —  A  Pit  of  Death. 

On  the  25th  of  May  a  dashing  leader  of  cavalry  joined  the  army. 
This  was  General  Phil.  H.  Sheridan,  a  favorite  commander  in  the 
West,  whom  Grant  had  now  put  in  command  of  the  mounted  troops 
in  the  Army  of  the  Potomac.  He  had  been  out  cutting  telegraph 
wires  and  tearing  up  railroads  in  the  enemy’s  lines,  and  brought  in 
a  large  body  of  prisoners.  His  raid  had  led  him  within  six  miles 
of  Richmond,  and  there  in  a  skirmish  his  men  had  killed  General 
Stuart,  General  Lee’s  favorite  cavalry  general,  who  for  three  years 
had  been  the  leader  of  daring  raids  into  Maryland  and  the  Union 
sections  of  Virginia. 

On  the  1st  of  June  the  two  hostile  armies,  skirmishing  all  the 
way,  stopped  again  at  a  place  called  Cold  Harbor,  very  near  one  of 
the  battle-fields,  on  which  McClellan  had  met  Lee  in  the  “  penin¬ 
sular  campaign.”  The  army  was  retracing  its  steps  now  over  the 
Peninsula  in  almost  its  old  track  of  1862.  For  the  first  time  it 
was  driving  the  enemy,  instead  of  being  driven. 

Here,  on  the  morning  of  June  2d,  the  battle  of  Cold  Harbor  be¬ 
gan.  It  was  another  story  of  terrible  loss  of  life,  and  ended  with¬ 
out  deciding  anything.  After  that  day’s  fighting,  and  several  days 
of  skirmishing,  Grant  began  to  move  again,  this  time  to  the  south 
side  of  James  River,  where  Butler  waited  to  welcome  him.  Lee, 
no  longer  strong  enough  to  make  an  attack,  fell  back  toward  Rich¬ 
mond,  and  stood  on  the  defensive.  Almost  at  his  last  gasp,  and 
driven  to  some  desperate  means  to  retrieve  his  sinking  fortunes, 
he  sent  General  Early,  with  all  the  cavalry  he  could  muster,  to 
invade  Western  Virginia  and  Maryland.  It  was  barely  possible 
that  by  throwing  an  army  into  Maryland,  and  threatening  the 
national  capital  again,  he  might  frighten  Grant  off  toward  Wash¬ 
ington.  Accordingly,  the  middle  of  June,  Early  departed.  Sigel 
was  no  longer  commanding  in  the  Shenandoah.  Grant  had  given 
his  place  to  General  Hunter,  who  had  so  far  not  been  very  suc¬ 
cessful.  Early  tore  along  through  Western  Virginia  like  a  whirl¬ 
wind,  till  he  reached  the  Potomac,  then  up  into  Pennsylvania. 


554 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


where  he  loaded  his  men  with  spoils,  and  gorged  them  with  the 
fat  of  the  land,  making  his  poor  half-starved  army  rejoice  in  abund¬ 
ance.  Driving  before  him  the  horses  and  cattle  he  had  captured, 
he  proceeded  toward  Frederick,  where  General  Lew.  Wallace  was 
doing  his  best  to  gather  a  force  and  make  a  stand  against  him. 
On  the  banks  of  the  Monoeacy  River,  a  stream  near  Frederick, 
Early  met  Wallace,  and  defeated  him,  continuing  his  march  to¬ 
ward  Washington.  Within  six  or  seven  miles  of  the  capital  he 
paused.  Here  a  body  of  troops,  pushing  out  from  Washington,  en¬ 
countered  his  advance,  and  there  was  a  sharp  skirmish  close  to  our 
national  capital.  The  country  began  to  be  filled  with  fears  for 
Washington.  Early,  however,  distrusted  his  own  powers,  and  be¬ 
gan  to  fall  back  across  the  Potomac,  carrying  havoc  into  Western 
Virginia  and  Pennsylvania  again.  For  a  time  he  swept  everything 
before  him,  levying  on  the  people  for  money,  as  well  as  cattle  and 
provisions. 

It  was  the  last  of  July,  and  Grant  hearing  all  the  time  of  Early’s 
operations,  concluded  he  must  send  a  man  there  to  stop  him.  Gen¬ 
eral  Sheridan  could  not  very  well  be 
spared,  as  he  was  of  great  service  in 
Grant’s  own  department.  But  then 
there  was  no  one  else  who  would 
make  quicker  work  of  driving  Early 
out  of  Pennsylvania.  Grant  there¬ 
fore  hurried  him  to  the  scene  of  ac¬ 
tion,  giving  him  before  starting  two 
words  of  instruction,  more  forcible 
than  elegant.  These  were  simply, 
“  Go  in.”  Sheridan,  who  is  some¬ 
thing  like  the  mastiff  breed  of  fighters, 
went  in. 

He  made  his  first  appearance  at 
Harper’s  Ferry.  Early,  resting  from 
his  last  profitable  raid  into  Pennsyl¬ 
vania  was  on  the  banks  of  a  small 
creek  near  Winchester.  Here  Sheridan  came  to  find  him  on  the 
19th  of  September,  and  they  had  a  battle  known  as  the  battle  of 
Winchester.  When  it  ended,  Early  was  driven  back  eight  miles. 
He  shrewdly  took  up  his  stand  on  Fisher’s  Hill,  a  very  strong  post,, 
between  two  high  mountains,  from  whence  he  hoped  to  sweep  Slier- 


Virginia  Cavalryman. 


SHERIDAN’S  RIDE.  555 

idan  out  of  existence,  if  he  came  to  an  attack.  On  came  the  gal¬ 
lant  Phil.,  his  fighting  blood  all 
alive  in  his  veins.  Again  he 
struck  Early  such  a  blow,  that, 
shattered  and  defeated,  he  fled 
for  safety  into  the  mountains. 

Sheridan  did  not  care  to  follow 
the  flying  rebel.  At  present  he 
was  where  he  could  do  no  harm. 

He  therefore  burned  all  the  grain 
and  forage  on  which  the  rebel 
army  could  feed  themselves  and 
their  horses,  and  went  up  to  Wash-  Foragers  at  work, 

ington  to  confer  with  the  authorities  there. 

Early  heard  of  Sheridan’s  absence,  and  creeping  down  the  mount¬ 
ains  he  prepared  for  one  last  blow.  Our  army  was  encamped  on  the 
banks  of  Cedar  Creek,  about  twenty  miles  from  Winchester.  The 
attack  was  a  complete  surprise.  So  quietly  had  Early  led  his  men 
down  upon  them,  that  the  rebel  yell  sounded  in  their  ears  before 
the  Union  soldiers  knew  what  the  matter  was.  Frightened  at  the 
sudden  attack,  they  began  to  run.  The  rebels  started  in  hot  pur¬ 
suit.  It  was  more  a  race  than  a  battle.  At  length  —  it  was  now 
late  in  the  afternoon  —  Gen¬ 
eral  Wright,  commanding  one 
corps,  had  succeeded  in  halt¬ 
ing  some  of  his  men,  when  a 
new  actor  appeared  on  the 
scene.  It  was  General  Sher¬ 
idan.  On  his  return  from 
Washington  he  had  stopped 
for  the  night  in  Winchester, 
and  hearing  distant  sounds  of  , 
firing,  had  sprung  to  his  horse, 
and  galloped  rapidly  on  to  the 
field. 

Two  thirds  of  the  way  thith-  Philip  h.  Sheridan, 

er  he  began  to  meet  the  stragglers  from  his  retreating  army.  Tak¬ 
ing  off  his  cap,  and  standing  up  in  his  stirrups  he  cried,  “  Turn 
round,  boys  ;  turn  round!  We  are  going  back  to  our  camp!  We  are 
going  to  beat  the  enemy  out  of  his  boots.”  The  sight  of  his  face, 


556 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


the  sound  of  his  voice,  gave  them  new  spirit.  The  men  faced  about, 
as  he  rode  down  the  ranks,  shouting,  “Turn  round!  Turn  round!  ” 
In  an  hour,  with  the  help  of  Wright’s  corps  already  in  line,  they 
had  beaten  back  their  pursuers.  By  night  the  boys  were  in  their 
camps  again,  and  Early,  with  no  more  strength  left  for  another 
battle,  was  hurrying  back  to  join  Lee.  Lee  had  felt  that  a  decided 
success  by  Early  might  save  his  army  in  Richmond.  By  Sheridan’s 
good  fighting  that  hope  had  been  foiled.  And  the  ride  to  Winches¬ 
ter,  the  victory  snatched  from  defeat,  had  furnished  a  poet  with  the 
subject  for  one  of  the  most  spirited  poems  of  the  war  :  — 

“Hurrah!  hurrah!  for  Sheridan, 

Hurrah!  hurrah!  for  horse  and  man. 

And  when  their  statues  are  placed  on  high, 

Under  the  dome  of  the  Union  sky, 

The  American  soldier’s  temple  of  fame, 

Then  with  the  glorious  general’s  name, 

Be  it  said,  in  letters  both  bold  and  bright, — 

Here  is  the  steed  that  saved  the  day, 

By  carrying  Sheridan  into  the  fight, 

From  Winchester,  twenty  miles  away.” 

After  the  battle  of  Cold  Harbor,  Grant  gave  up  the  idea  of  taking 
Richmond  from  the  north.  He  resolved  to  cross  the  James  River 
and  find  the  enemy’s  weak  point  on  the  south.  He  had  lost  a 
great  number  of  men  in  these  battles,  but  a  large  army  still  re¬ 
mained,  and  reinforcements  were  never  wanting.  The  new  com¬ 
mander  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  never  expressed  a  doubt  that 
Richmond  would  yet  be  in  his  hands.  By  the  16th  of  June  he  had 
brought  the  army  across  the  James,  and  was  conferring  with  Butler 
about  an  attack  on  Petersburg. 

Petersburg  was  a  point  on  the  Appomattox  River,  twenty  miles 
from  Richmond,  whence  a  knot  of  raih’oads  sent  out  branches  to  the 
west  and  southeast.  It  was  strongly  fortified,  and  was  a  point 
most  important  in  the  defense  of  Richmond.  As  soon  as  Lee  un¬ 
derstood  that  Grant  was  threatening  the  place,  he  poured  his  army 
into  Petersburg,  and  the  fortifications  were  made  doubly  strong. 
One  vain  assault  was  made,  with  terrible  slaughter,  and  then  the 
Union  army  settled  down  in  front  of  the  trenches  at  Petersburg. 

Then  a  new  design  was  formed  and  carried  out.  For  a  month 
the  soldiers  worked  in  the  earth,  like  moles,  digging  a  tunnel 
through  the  earth  under  one  of  the  principal  forts,  that  they  might 


THE  WAR  IN  THE  WEST.  557 

undermine  and  blow  it  up  with  gunpowder.  It  was  believed  the 
surprise  of  the  explosion  would  aid  in  securing  an  easy  victory. 

By  daylight  on  the  30th  of  July  the  mine  was  exploded.  A  ter¬ 
rible  roar  was  heard,  and  a  mass  of  earth,  stones,  guns,  pieces  of 
cannon,  mangled  human  bodies,  were  thrown  high  into  the  air. 
The  earth  around  trembled  as  if  an  earthquake  shook  it.  When 
all  was  over,  a  great  crater,  like  that  of  a  volcano,  was  seen  in  the 
middle  of  the  defenses.  At  the  same  time  an  assault  was  ordered 
by  the  Union  general.  But  unfortunately  this  advance  was  made 
slowly.  The  ground  had  been  filled  with  obstructions,  and  before 
the  first  column  reached  the  crater  the  rebels  had  rallied  from  their 
fright  and  the  edge  was  thick  with  guns.  A  division  of  negro  sol¬ 
diers  led  the  attack.  They  started  up  the  crest,  but  were  pushed 
back  into  the  gulf  below,  which  became  a  terrible  “  pit  of  death.” 
The  cannon  swept  into  it  from 
front,  right,  and  left.  The  place 
was  filled  with  human  bodies, 
black  and  white  mingled  to¬ 
gether  ;  the  earth  literally  ran 
rivers  of  blood;  men  trying  to 
climb  from  the  pit  were  beaten 
back  with  clubbed  muskets,  and 
fell  with  crushed  skulls  and  man¬ 
gled  faces  on  the  heaps  of  their 
slain  comrades.  Those  who  could 
See  an  outlet  of  escape,  retreated  Sheridan's  Head-quarters  at  Winchester. 

without  order,  each  seeking  his  own  safety.  It  was  —  as  General 
Grant  pronounced  it  —  “a  needlessly  miserable  affair.”  This 
ended,  for  the  year  1864,  the  campaign  before  Richmond. 


CHAPTER  LY. 

THE  WAR  IN  THE  WEST. 

Red  River  Expedition.  —  Forrest’s  Raid.  —  Butchery  at  Fort  Pillow.  —  Secret  Societies.  — 

End  of  the  Struggle  in  Missouri. 


Let  us  leave  Grant  in  snug  winter-quarters,  his  army  in  their 
huts,  stretching  for  miles  around  the  outer  defenses  at  Petersburg, 
while  we  see  what  has  been  going  on  elsewhere. 


558 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


Down  in  Louisiana  the  war  had  been  raging.  In  March,  General 
Banks,  who  was  commanding  at  New  Orleans,  and  keeping  open  the 
passage  of  the  Mississippi,  was  ordered  to  go  up  the  Red  River  into 
the  interior  of  Louisiana,  and  try  to  bring  the  rebels  of  that  State 
and  Texas  to  repentance  for  their  treasonable  behavior.  Accord¬ 
ingly,  Banks  with  an  army,  and  Commodore  Porter  with  his  gun¬ 
boats,  started  on  the  “  Red  River  Expedition.”  They  met  with 
alternate  victory  and  defeat  in  their  engagement  with  the  rebels  on 
the  river  course,  but  after  many  adventures,  Banks  finally  returned 
in  April,  without  having  accomplished  anything. 

In  this  very  month  of  April  the  shores  of  the  great  Mississippi 
were  also  the  scene  of  a  dreadful  slaughter,  which  filled  the  North 
with  horror.  General  N.  B.  Forrest  was  a  leader  of  the  rebel  cav¬ 
alry  of  the  same  stamp  as  the  notorious  John  Morgan.  When 
Morgan  was  making  his  famous  raids  in  Kentucky,  in  1862,  Forrest 
was  ranging  in  like  manner  through  Tennessee,  stripping  the  State 
of  horses,  cattle,  provisions,  filling  the  Unionists  everywhere  with 
dread  at  the  very  sound  of  his  name.  In  March,  1864,  ne  started 
from  Northern  Mississippi  on  one  of  the  longest  expeditions  he  had 
yet  made.  The  largest  part  of  our  army  of  the  West  was  concen¬ 
trated  at  Chattanooga,  leaving  West  Tennessee  comparatively  at 
Forrest’s  mercy.  He  went  through  the  State  like  a  whirlwind,  ruin 
and  famine  stalking  in  his  track,  to  finish  the  destruction  of  the 
wretched  inhabitants.  He  passed  up  through  Tennessee  into  Ken¬ 
tucky,  carrying  the  same  desolation  everywhere,  until  he  reached 
Paducah,  on  the  Ohio  River,  the  first  place  Grant  had  taken  when 
he  came  down  to  Cairo  in  1862.  There  were  a  small  body  of  men 
in  Fort  Anderson,  an  outpost  of  Paducah ;  and  Forrest,  made  in¬ 
solent  by  his  triumphant  journey  through  Tennessee  and  Kentucky, 
demanded  its  surrender  in  these  words,  “  If  you  surrender,  you  shall 
be  treated  as  prisoners  of  war ;  if  I  have  to  storm  your  works,  expect 
no  quarter .” 

In  spite  of  this  bloody  threat  and  his  small  numbers,  Colonel 
Hicks,  who  commanded  the  fort,  refused  to  surrender.  Two  or  three 
gun-boats  lying  off  in  the  river,  prepared  to  second  his  defense  of 
the  post.  Forrest  stormed,  but  found  the  place  too  strong  for  him, 
and  went  down  the  Mississippi,  breathing  oaths  of  vengeance  on  any 
place  weak  enough  to  yield  to  his  assault. 

Fort  Pillow,  just  above  Memphis,  victoriously  occupied  by  our 
troops  in  the  march  toward  Vicksburg,  was  his  next  point  of  attack. 


THE  WAR  IN  THE  WEST.  559 

At  this  time  there  were  only  five  hundred  men  there,  under  com¬ 
mand  of  Major  Booth. 

Fully  half  these  troops  were  negroes,  on  whom  Forrest’s  chief 
desire  for  vengeance  fell.  Arriving  before  the  weakly  garrisoned 
fort  with  his  great  force  of  cavalry,  he  demanded  its  surrender  with 
the  same  threat  in  case  of  their  refusal  that  he  had  made  at  Padu¬ 
cah.  Major  Booth  refused  to  consider  the  surrender,  and  fought 
bravely  till  he  was  killed  at  his  post.  Major  Bradford  succeeded 
him,  and  Forrest  again  called  the  fort  to  give  up,  and  again  met 
with  a  refusal.  On  this,  the  rebels  made  one  tremendous  attack  and 
burst  into  the  fort.  The  garrison,  which  threw  down  its  arms  on 
the  entrance  of  the  concpierors,  was  at  once  put  to  the  sword.  Men, 
women,  and  children  were  murdered  in  cold  blood.  Those  who 
sought  to  flee  to  the  river,  were  followed,  and  shot  or  stabbed  with¬ 
out  mercy.  The  negro  soldiers  were  killed  with  most  inhuman 
barbarity,  some  of  them  nailed  to  the  floor  with  the  cloth  of  their 
tents,  and  burned  to  death  ;  wounded  men  were  held  up  to  be  shot 
at,  till  a  bare  handful  of  prisoners  remained.  Some  of  these,  Major 
Bradford  among  the  rest,  were  taken  away,  to  be  shot  next  day. 
The  butchery  at  Fort  Pillow  will  remain  as  one  of  the  worst  horrors 
of  a  war  made  always  more  horrible  by  the  unrestrained  temper  of 
men  accustomed  as  slave-holders  to  wreak  their  passions  on  the 
unresisting:  slave.  The  murderers  at  Fort  Pillow  had  declared  that 
they  would  not  recognize  the  negroes  as  prisoners,  and  killed  the 
whites  because  they  were  found  “  fighting  with  the  negroes.”  Yet 
only  a  few  months  later,  in  the  last  “congress  of  the  Confederate 
States,”  there  was  a  hot  debate  on  the  subject  of  arming  the  negroes 
still  left  them,  and  if  the  rebels  could  have  been  as  certain  of  the 
attachment  of  their  slaves  to  the  cause  of  their  masters  as  to  the 
cause  of  freedom,  in  all  human  probability  their  last  resort  would 
have  been  to  have  “  fought  with  their  negroes.” 

The  battle  of  Pea  Ridge,  in  the  spring  of  1862,  had  been  pretty 
effectual  in  driving  the  rebels  from  Missouri.  There  had  been  one 
severe  raid  by  the  rebel  General  Marmaduke,  in  which  he  was  met 
by  our  troops  and  forced  to  retreat  to  Arkansas.  But  the  rebel 
element  was  still  alive  in  Missouri,  though  working  secretly.  After 
his  defeat  at  Chickamauga,  General  Rosecrans  had  repaired  to  St. 
Louis,  and  found  that  secret  societies  known  as  “  Sons  of  Liberty,” 
and  “  Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle,”  had  been  formed  there,  and 
were  in  active  league  with  the  rebel  army.  That  undaunted  sol- 

36 


560 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


dier,  Sterling  Price,  was  lurking  on  the  borders  of  Arkansas,  ready 
to  invade  the  State  when  these  plotters  were  ripe  to  receive  him. 
Rosecrans  wrote  again  and  again  to  Washington,  of  his  informa¬ 
tion  of  the  intentions  of  the  traitors,  and  at  last  got  together  a 
force  sufficient  to  give  Price  a  warm  welcome.  In  September  Price 
made  his  last  attempt  to  drag  Missouri  again  into  the  clutches  of 
treason.  He  was  met  with  such  firmness  and  energy  that  he  dared 
make  no  demonstration,  but  began  a  retreat.  Nearly  all  the  month 
of  October  was  spent  in  retreat  and  pursuit,  by  rebels  and  Union¬ 
ists,  till  at  last  Price  trailed  the  last  remnant  of  his  tattered  ban¬ 
ners  down  through  the  borders  of  Kansas  into  Western  Arkansas, 
and  there  watched  hopelessly  the  final  dying  out  of  the  struggle 
in  Missouri. 


CHAPTER  LVI. 

NAVAL  ENGAGEMENTS. 

A  Confederate  Navy.  —  Ships  built  in  English  Ports.  —  The  Alabama.  —  Fight  with  the  Kear- 
sarge.  —  Story  of  a  Brave  Sailor.  —  Collins  violates  Neutrality  Laws.  —  The  Battle  of  Mobile 
Bay.  —  Farragut  lashed  to  the  Main-top.  —  The  Gulf  is  Ours. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  contest  the  rebels  had  passed  sounding 
resolutions  in  favor  of  building  a  “  Confederate  Navy  ;  ”  and  as  the 
number  of  naval  officers  in  the  United  States  service  who  had  de¬ 
serted  their  government  for  the  cause  of  rebellion,  was  very  large, 
they  did  not  lack  able  naval  commanders  in  the  South.  They  had, 
as  you  remember,  made  a  very  creditable  iron  “  ram,”  the  Merrimack, 
out  of  a  United  States  man-of-war,  captured  early  in  the  war,  and 
they  had  done  some  very  good  ship-building  under  great  disadvan¬ 
tages.  But  they  would  have  early  been  brought  to  a  stop  in  their 
naval  enterprises,  for  want  of  means  to  carry  them  on,  if  it  had  not 
been  for  the  aid  received  from  a  party  in  England,  whose  sympa¬ 
thies  were  largely  with  the  rebels.  It  is  only  fair  to  believe  that 
English  monarchists  do  not  rejoice  in  the  success  of  a  republican 
form  of  government,  and  that  the  sympathy  these  Englishmen  felt 
and  showed  with  the  rebellion  was  caused  by  the  interest  in  the  fail¬ 
ure  of  a  nation  whose  system  of  government  was  so  at  variance  with 
their  own.  With  the  real  issue  of  the  seceding  States,  the  right  to 
hold  slaves,  they  had  no  sympathy.  Almost  every  Englishman  — 
let  us  say  this  to  his  honor  —  had  looked  with  horror  on  the  slave¬ 
holding  policy  of  the  United  States. 


NAVAL  ENGAGEMENTS. 


561 


Notwithstanding  all  our  government  could  say  or  do,  ship-build¬ 
ing  for  the  rebels  was  begun  and  carried  on  in  English  ports.  At 
Liverpool  a  builder  named  Laird,  was  engaged  in  furnishing  ships 
to  rebel  “  privateers.”  One  of  the  most  noted  of  these  privateer 
captains  was  Raphael  Semmes,  who  began  his  career  in  the  Sumter , 
in  the  year  1861.  The  Sumter  was  sunk  by  a  Union  vessel  early  in 
her  career,  and  Semmes  went  straightway  to  Laird  for  a  new  vessel. 
This  vessel,  named  the  Alabama ,  in  honor  —  or  dishonor  —  of 
Semmes’s  native  State,  set  out  on  her  cruise  in  1862.  She  princi¬ 
pally  haunted  foreign  ports  and  waylaid  helpless  American  mer¬ 
chantmen  bound  on  long  voyages.  The  Alabama  sailed  under  a 
British  flag,  and  was  manned  for  the  most  part  by  English  seamen. 
When  the  unsuspecting  merchantman,  decoyed  by  the  flag  of  a 
friendly  nation  approached  near  enough,  Semmes  opened  his  guns 
upon  her,  at  the  same  time  running  up  the  rebel  stars  and  bars 
above  the  British  ensign.  In  her  career  of  plunder  this  one  ship 
had  captured  over  sixty  vessels,  destroyed  forty-five  others,  and 
taken  millions  of  dollars  worth  of  property. 

In  June,  1864,  grown  bold  from  long  success,  Semmes  lay  in  the 
harbor  of  Cherbourg  in  France.  Outside  the  harbor  was  the 
stanch  ship  Kearsarge,  named  for  a  mountain  of  New  England,  and 
commanded  by  Captain  Winslow,  a  loyal  North  Carolinian. 

The  boastful  Semmes  sent  a  notice  of  his  desire  to  fight  the 
Kearsarge.  Winslow  accepted  the  challenge  with  delight.  On  the 
morning  of  the  19th  of  June,  1864,  the  Alabama  steamed  out  of  the 
harbor  to  where  the  Kearsarge  awaited  her. 

The  vessels  did  not  make  a  close  approach,  but  steaming  round 
and  round  in  wide  circles,  kept  firing  at  each  other.  In  an  hour’s 
time  the  Alabama  was  sinking,  while  the  Kearsarge ,  erect  and  unhurt, 
not  one  man  killed  on  board  her,  was  left  victorious.  I  should  not 
have  said  not  one  man  was  killed.  One  brave  sailor,  named  William 
Gowin,  had  his  leg  shattered  at  the  knee  early  in  the  fight.  He 
concealed  his  injury  as  much  as  possible,  and  refusing  to  go  below, 
sat  on  deck  waving  his  hat  over  his  head,  crying  out  words  of  en¬ 
couragement  to  his  comrades  till  the  fight  was  over.  Then  he  was 
taken  to  hospital  and  died  there,  saying,  “  I  am  willing  to  die  for  my 
country  since  our  ship  got  the  victory.”  When  defeat  was  certain, 
Semmes  and  his  men  leaped  from  their  sinking  vessel.  Most  of 
them  were  picked  up  by  an  English  yacht,  come  out  from  the  har¬ 
bor  to  see  the  fight,  and  so  escaped  being  taken  prisoners. 


562 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


A  few  months  later  another  of  these  English  built  ships,  the 
Florida ,  who  had  been  lurking  near  the  American  coasts,  was  also 
captured.  The  rebel  commander,  John  Moffit,  is  accused  not  only 
of  robbing  the  merchant  ships,  but  also  of  breaking  open  private 
baggage  of  the  passengers.  One  of  our  historians1  relates  of  Moffit, 
that  when  a  boy  at  school,  one  of  his  companions  wrote  these  verses 
about  him  :  — 

“  And  here ’s  Johnny  Moffit,  as  straight  as  a  gun, 

If  you  face  him  square  up  he  ’ll  turn  round  and  run  ; 

The  first  boy  in  school,  if  thieving  and  lies, 

Instead  of  good  scholarship,  bear  off  the  prize.” 

It  was  certainly  not  a  good  character  for  John  Moffit  to  bring  away 
from  school,  especially  if  he  had  for  a  copy  in  his  writing-book, 
“The  child  is  father  of  the  man.” 

At  last,  in  the  fall  of  1864,  the  Florida  was  in  San  Salvador  Bay 
on  the  Brazilian  coast.  In  the  harbor  also  was  the  ship  Wachusett , 
named  like  the  Kearsarge  for  a  New  England  mountain,  and  com¬ 
manded  by  Captain  Collins.  Captain  Collins  had  remonstrated 
with  the  Brazilians  for  allowing  a  vessel  engaged  in  piracy  against 
the  United  States  to  enter  its  harbor,  and  our  consul  had  repeated 
the  remonstrance.  Finding  the  Brazilians  took  no  notice  of  him, 
Collins  tried  to  induce  the  Florida  to  come  out  and  fight,  but  she 
knew  her  weakness,  and  skulked  for  protection  among  the  Brazilian 
vessels.  At  length,  on  the  midnight  of  October  6th,  the  Wachusett , 
putting  on  a  full  head  of  steam,  ran  right  into  the  Florida ,  dealing 
her  a  staggering  blow.  Then  our  men  boarded  her,  and  fastening  a 
stout  rope  to  her  bows,  the  Wachusett  steamed  off  to  the  open  sea 
with  the  Florida  in  tow. 

The  Brazilians  did  not  find  out  the  affair  till  both  vessels  were 
on  their  way  to  Hampton  Roads,  Virginia.  But  this  capture  of  a 
ship  in  a  neutral  harbor  was  contrary  to  the  laws  of  nations,  and 
resented  by  the  government  of  Brazil.  Mr.  Seward,  the  secretary 
of  state,  was  forced  to  apologize,  and  Collins  was  both  blamed  and 
praised  for  his  daring. 

It  is  so  long  since  we  have  heard  from  our  brave  Farragut  that 
I  am  sure  you  will  be  glad  to  hear  about  him  again.  He  was 


1  Tossing,  hist-  Civil  War. 


NAVAL  ENGAGEMENTS. 


563 


clads  and  four  gun-boats  under  his  command,  when  word  came 
that  Mobile  Bay  must  be  taken.  General  Canby  —  one  of  our 
brave  officers  who  had  been  doing  rather  a  thankless  work  in  Texas 
during  the  war  —  sent  all  the  troops  he  could  spare  to  Farragut, 
and  on  the  6th  of  August  his  fleet  was  steaming  up  the  channel. 

Mobile  Bay  was  now  the  only  strong  point  in  the  Gulf,  and  its 
convenient  harbor  had  formed  a  snug  nursery  for  the  young  navy  of 
the  rebels,  where  many  boats  had 
been  built  and  repaired  for  active 
service  against  the  Union.  There 
was  not  a  very  large  fleet  here  at 
this  time,  however,  to  confront  the 
national  vessels,  but  Fort  Morgan 
on  one  side  and  Forts  Gaines 
and  Powell  on  the  other,  were 
prepared  to  sweep  Farragut  as  he 
passed.  The  brave  old  admiral 
lashed  himself  aloft  in  the  main¬ 
top  of  his  flag-ship,  the  Hartford , 
that  he  might  see  clearly  over  the 
smoke  of  the  firing.  By  his  side 
was  a  tube  reaching  to  the  deck,  through  which  he  shouted  his  com¬ 
mands  below.  Some  smiling  young  cherub  that  sits  up  aloft,  must 


The  Hartford. 


have  guarded  him  from  the  shot  and  shell  that  fell  thick  around  him, 
as  his  flag-ship  went  into  the  deadly  fire.  The  first  of  our  iron-clads 
that  entered  the  channel  struck  a  torpedo  placed  there  to  explode 


564 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


and  blow  up  the  ship  that  entered.  A  sullen  roar,  a  great  water¬ 
spout,  and  down  went  the  Tecumseh,  with  her  captain  and  crew. 
After  that  the  fleet  approached  more  cautiously,  each  vessel  fearing 
that  her  fate  might  be  that  of  the  Tecumseh.  But  before  evening 
the  rebel  fleet  was  dispersed,  the  forts  passed,  and  no  more  torpedoes 
encountered.  Then  Farragut  began  upon  the  forts.  One  after 
another  they  gave  in.  First,  Morgan  surrendered,  then  Gaines, 
while  Powell  was  blown  up  and  abandoned  by  its  garrison.  On 
the  9th  of  August  Farragut’ s  vessels  rode  safely  in  Mobile  Bay, 
and  the  city  lay  at  his  mercy.  Satisfied  with  this  success  for  the 
present,  he  did  not  attack  the  city.  Canby’s  troops  were  needed  to 
fill  up  the  army  in  Tennessee  and  Mississippi,  and  were  sent  back 
there,  leaving  the  vessels  to  hold  Mobile  Bay,  — 

“  For  the  mighty  Gulf  is  ours, 

The  Bay  is  lost  and  won!  ” 

And  the  last  stronghold  in  the  Gulf  was  again  a  part  of  the  nation. 


CHAPTER  LVII. 

ON  TO  ATLANTA. 

William  T.  Sherman.  —  The  Three  Armies.  —  Rebel  Generals.  —  The  Army  fights  its  Way  to 
Atlanta.  —  McPherson  killed.  —  “Atlanta  is  Ours  and  fairly  won.”  —  Designs  against  Nash¬ 
ville.  —  “  Old  Reliable.”  —  Nashville  saved. 


When  Grant  left  Chattanooga  to  don  the  fresh  uniform  of  lieu¬ 
tenant-general  of  the  army  of  the  United  States,  and  to  direct  in 
person  the  movements  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  General  Will¬ 
iam  T.  Sherman  went  with  him  as  far  as  Cincinnati.  Grant  had 
one  admirable  quality  of  a  good  general :  he  could  see  military 
talent  in  other  men.  He  had  early  seen  the  great  ability  of  Sher¬ 
man,  and  he  now  gave  him  full  control  in  the  West.  Three  armies, 
—  the  Tennessee,  under  McPherson  ;  the  Ohio,  in  command  of  Gen¬ 
eral  Schofield ;  and  the  Cumberland,  with  Thomas  at  its  head,  were 
united  under  his  command. 

In  1861  Sherman  had  told  the  government  that  it  would  take  an 
army  of  200,000  men  to  carry  the  stars  and  stripes  to  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico,  and  sweep  those  States  clean  of  rebellion.  The  government 
called  him  “  crazy  ;  ”  and  some  of  its  officials  declared  the  rebellion 


ON  TO  ATLANTA. 


565 


would  be  over  in  a  month  or  two.  Now,  after  almost  four  years  our 
army  had  only  just  reached  the  boundaries  of  Georgia,  while  thou¬ 
sands  upon  thousands  were  left 
dead  along  its  line  of  advance 
through  Kentucky  and  Tennessee. 

Now,  when  Sherman  demanded 
100,000  men  to  finish  the  work 
Grant  had  begun,  they  were  at 
once  furnished,  and  his  request 
was  thought  a  remarkably  sane 
and  reasonable  one. 

The  Union  army  was  at  Chat¬ 
tanooga  when  their  last  battle  had 
been  fought  and  won.  South  of 
them,  at  Dalton  in  Georgia,  was 

General  Joseph  Johnston,  next  wiiiiam  t.  Sherman, 

to  Lee,  probably,  the  ablest  soldier  in  the  rebel  army.  The  bold 
mountain  steep  of  Rocky-faced  Ridge  interposed  as  a  barrier  be¬ 
tween  him  and  his  foes.  With  him  were  three  able  generals: 
Hardee,  Hood,  and  Polk.  Hardee, 
an  able  tactician  ;  Hood,  impul¬ 
sive  and  fearless  ;  Polk,  a  better 
soldier  than  a  minister  of  Christ’s 
peaceful  doctrines. 

Beyond  Johnston,  to  the  south, 
lay  Atlanta.  Georgia  was  now  the 
co-rival  of  Virginia  in  importance 
to  the  Confederacy  ;  and  her  heart 
was  Atlanta.  This  town  was  the 
centre  of  many  radiating  railways, 
that  poured  in  grain  and  beef  from 
the  surrounding  country  ;  it  was 
the  centre,  also,  of  a  circle  of  smaller  manufacturing  towns,  sending 
in  cloth,  shoes,  cannon,  powder,  and  bullets.  All  that  was  needed 
to  feed,  clothe,  and  equip  an  army,  was  found  in  this  flourishing  city. 
Sherman’s  keen  eye  saw  through  all  obstacles  the  straight  road  to 
Atlanta,  and  when  his  army  of  98,800  men  were  in  marching  order, 
announced  that  he  was  going  to  move  upon  that  place. 

Grant’s  advance  to  Richmond  was  begun  on  the  8d  of  May. 
Sherman’s  move  on  Atlanta  was  one  day  later.  I  fancy  this 


Leonidas  Polk. 


566 


STORI  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


united  movement  was  fixed  upon  when  the  two  generals  conferred 
together  in  the  cars,  on  idle  way  to  Cincinnati.  In  the  warm  May 
weather,  the  troops  struck  their  tents  at  Chattanooga,  and  fell  into 
the  ranks.  The  word  “  March  !  ”  repeated  by  hundreds  of  voices, 
resounded  along  the  lines,  and  “  On  to  Atlanta  ”  went  the  army. 

The  enemy  were  at  first  inclined  to  fight  at  Dalton,  but  McPher¬ 
son  was  sent  round  behind  them  to  tear  up  a  railroad,  and  cut  off 
supplies,  if  they  waited  to  give  battle  ;  and  the  cunning  Johnston, 
seeing  this  design,  fell  back  farther  south  to  the  village  of  Resaca. 
To  Resaca  followed  Sherman,  where  the  enemy  were  in  fighting 
order. 

Thomas,  McPherson,  and  Schofield  burst  here  upon  Ilood,  Hardee, 
and  Polk,  —  foemen  quite  worthy  of  their  steel.  There  the  Union 
army  counted  their  dead  by  thousands,  while  the  rebels,  in  a  better 
guarded  position,  suffered  much  less.  But  next  day  —  it  was  now 
grown  to  be  the  15tli  of  May  —  the  rebels  fell  back  from  Resaca  to 
a  new  position  behind  a  rocky  ridge  near  Cassville ;  and  Sherman, 
following  quickly,  had  taken  a  new  stride  on  his  journey.  Again 
Johnston  left  his  position,  and  crossing  a  little  river  behind  him, 


Summit  of  Kenesaw  Mountain. 


went  to  another  row  of  hills  in  the  direct  line  south.  On  these 
hills  the  rebels  again  turned  to  face  Sherman,  and  at  New  Hope 
Church,  close  by  the  town  of  Dallas,  another  deadly  battle  raged. 
Two  days  of  hot  fighting,  and  Johnston  again  fell  back  to  Kenesaw 
Mountain,  the  highest  of  another  nest  of  hills,  through  which  the 
railway  track  wound  to  Atlanta.  Here,  drawn  up  in  the  most 
formidable  array  they  had  yet  presented,  the  enemy  fronted  Sher¬ 
man  again.  Atlanta  was  to  be  fought  for  inch  by  inch.  Sherman 


ON  TO  ATLANTA. 


567 


assaulted  these  firm  ranks  on  the  mountain-side,  but  was  beaten 
back  with  terrible  loss,  while  the  rebels,  behind  their  intrench- 
ments,  were  comparatively  safe.  They  lost  one  officer,  however, 
who  counted  for  many  men  ;  this  was  General  Bishop  Leonidas 
Polk,  whose  name  we  have  heard  ever  since  secession  first  raised 
its  banners. 

Since  Kenesaw  could  not  be  taken  by  assault,  Sherman  tried  his 
favorite  method  of  getting  behind  the  enemy  to  cut  off  his  supplies. 
Johnston  at  once  perceived  his  movement,  and  fell  back  again,  this 
time  across  the  Chattahoochee  River.  Another  stride,  and  Sherman 
was  over  the  river  after  him. 

Here  a  fortunate  event  happened  for  Sherman.  General  Johns¬ 
ton,  a  very  skillful  and  cautious  leader,  was  removed  by  Jefferson 
Davis,  and  General  Hood  was  put  in  his  place.  The  rebel  army 
had  now  lost  Johnston  and  Polk.  Hood,  brave  but  reckless,  was 
left  alone  to  meet  Sherman,  who  was  a  fox  as  well  as  a  lion  in  the 
field  of  war. 

The  last  natural  bar  now  between  our  army  and  Atlanta  was 
Peach  T  ree  Creek,  a  small  branch  of  the  Chattahoochee.  Here 
Sherman  fought  Hood,  this  time  shattering  his  army  terribly. 
After  this  only  the  fortifications  about  Atlanta  presented  them¬ 
selves.  On  the  21st  of  July  McPherson’s  division  swung  round  to 
the  soutiieast,  and  encamped  three  miles  from  the  city.  But  this 
advance  cost  Sherman  one  of  the  most  valuable  lives  in  the  country. 
The  gallant  McPherson,  commander  of  the  Army  of  the  Tennessee, 
was  shot  dead  in  a  wood,  just  outside  the  rebel  lines. 

From  the  last  of  July  until  the  1st  of  September,  fighting,  skir¬ 
mishing,  and  manoeuvring  succeeded  each  other.  In  the  opening  of 
September,  —  the  fourth  month  since  Sherman  left  the  borders  of 
Tennessee,  —  Hood  abandoned  Atlanta,  first  setting  fire  to  his  stores 
and  some  of  the  valuable  manufactories.  On  the  2d  of  September 
Sherman  rode  into  the  town,  still  smoking  with  the  fires  Hood  had 
lighted  there.  The  happy  general  telegraphed  to  his  chief  :  “  At¬ 
lanta  is  ours,  and  fairly  won.”  The  hardest  blow  yet  dealt  at  rebel¬ 
lion,  had  fallen.  The  most  despairing  grew  hopeful  in  the  sunshine 
of  this  victory. 

General  Hood  had  been  placed  in  power  to  retrieve  what  Johns¬ 
ton  had  lost.  In  return,  he  had  lost  Atlanta.  Desperate  from  his 
failure,  he  started  on  a  bold  push  back  through  Georgia,  to  Nash¬ 
ville,  Tennessee.  Nashville  was  the  source  from  which  Sherman 


568 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


would  get  his  supplies,  by  way  of  Chattanooga.  Hood  hoped  to 
starve  his  enemy  in  Georgia,  by  cutting  him  off  from  his  base  in 
Tennessee.  It  was  the  last  hazard  of  a  desperate  man.  If  he  were 
successful,  it  might  change  the  whole  fortune  of  war.  But  Sherman 
was  on  the  alert,  and  quick  to  fathom  his  designs.  He  gave  to 
Thomas  the  charge  of  following  Hood,  and  keeping  him  out  of  mis¬ 
chief.  Then  he  proceeded  in  Georgia  to  carry  out  a  favorite  project 
of  his  own. 

In  the  mean  time,  Hood  spurred  on  toward  Nashville.  Ahead 
of  him,  with  a  fine  body  of  mounted  men,  rode  N.  B.  Forrest,  who 
knew  the  best,  roads  in  Tennessee  as  well  as  his  alphabet.  The 
army  under  Hood,  reinforced  all  along  the  route,  grew  larger  daily. 

Thomas  marched  rapidly,  and  reached  Nashville  in  October.  His 
army  was  now  much  less  than  Hood's,  and  sending  North  at  once 
for  reinforcements,  he  waited  for  them  to  come  to  his  aid.  Schofield 
was  also  on  the  way  to  join  him  from  the  South.  The  chief  fear 
was  lest  Hood  might  attack,  and  swallow  him  up  in  his  march  to 
Nashville.  Thomas  strengthened  Murfreesboro’  so  hardly  won  from 
Bragg  two  years  before,  and  waited  anxiously  —  all  his  energies 
alive  to  meet  the  coming  event,  —  with  the  fate  of  Tennessee,  per¬ 
haps  *of  the  war,  resting  on  his  shoulders.  There  were  few  men 
better  fitted  than  he  to  bear  such  burdens.  His  friends  had  long 
since  named  him  “  Old  Reliable  ;  ”  and  the  soldiers  who  had  felt 
his  fatherly  care  for  their  safety  and  comfort,  called  him  “  Pap 
Safety,”  or  “  Old  Pap  Thomas.”  One  of  the  best  and  ablest  men 
of  the  war,  sharing  the  confidence  of  the  nation  with  Grant  and 
Sherman,  was  this  watchful  man  at  Nashville, —  General  George 
H.  Thomas. 

On  the  7th  of  November  the  first  guns  of  the  conflict  were  heard 
at  Franklin,  a  village  lying  south  of  Nashville.  Schofield,  hasten¬ 
ing  to  join  Thomas,  had  been  caught  there  by  Flood.  Beset  by 
much  larger  numbers,  all  Schofield  could  hope  was  to  get  away  as 
safely  as  he  could  to  Nashville.  The  day  was  spent  in  fight,  which 
bore  heavily  on  Flood  ;  and  next  morning  Schofield  had  joined  with 
his  leader.  On  the  same  day  reinforcements  from  Missouri  arrived, 
and  Thomas  ceased  to  be  anxious. 

On  the  2d  of  December  Hood  began  the  siege  of  Nashville.  The 
weather  was  bitter  cold.  The  rebels  shivered  in  the  tents  outside, 
and  the  frozen  earth  hardly  yielded  to  their  spades.  But  about  the 
middle  of  the  month  the  cold  abated.  Mild  weather  came,  and  the 


THE  MARCH  TO  THE  SEA. 


569 


frozen  earth  became  liquid  mud.  On  the  14th  of  December  the 
Union  army  came  out  to  give  battle.  The  plan  of  attack  was  like 
Thomas,  strong,  calm,  and  effectual.  When  the  early  winter  twi¬ 
light  fell,  Hood  had  been  driven  back  from  his  position,  and  every¬ 
thing  looked  fair  for  the  next  day.  Next  morning  fresh  cannon 
bursts  gave  warning  of  the  reopening  of  the  fight.  This  day  there 
was  no  doubtful  success.  Twilight  saw  the  rebels  in  full  retreat 
toward  Franklin.  On  they  went  pell-mell,  throwing  away  as  they 
ran,  their  guns,  knapsacks,  blankets,  all  that  would  impede  their 
flight.  Bull  Run  was  forever  avenged.  Our  troops  pursued  till 
darkness  stopped  the  race.  Next  day  the  pursuit  was  continued. 
Thomas  strongly  hoped  to  capture  all  Hood’s  army.  On  this  point 
Hood  disappointed  him.  Gathering  his  troops  together,  he  formed 
now  an  orderly  retreat,  and  crossed  the  Tennessee  with  what  was 
left  of  his  army. 


CHAPTER  LYIII. 

THE  MARCH  TO  THE  SEA. 

The  Army  begins  its  March.  —  The  Army  Battle  Hymn.  —  The  Land  of  Plenty.  —  Prison  Pen 
at  Millen.  —  “  Old  Glory.”  —  The  Sight  of  the  Sea.  —  Lincoln’s  Christmas  Present.  —  Sher¬ 
man  goes  North.  — Burning  of  Columbia. —  Charleston  restored  to  the  Nation.  —  Nearing  the 
End  of  the  March.  — The  Forlorn  Hope  of  Johnston.  — It  is  baffled  at  Benton sville.  —  Sher¬ 
man  joins  Grant. 

Fully  trusting  in  the  ability  of  Thomas  to  foil  the  designs  of 
Hood  in  Tennessee,  Sherman  proceeded  to  carry  out  his  darling 
project.  This  was  a  march  to  the  Atlantic  coast,  through  Georgia, 
thence  north  through  the  Carolinas  to  join  Grant  in  Virginia.  Sher¬ 
man,  like  most  other  wise  soldiers  and  statesmen,  was  convinced 
that  the  surest  way  to  end  the  cruelty  of  the  war  was  by  decisive 
and  resolute  measures.  He  believed  in  invading  the  enemy’s  coun¬ 
try  and  destroying  the  resources  which  helped  them  continue  the 
war.  Georgia  was  the  great  centre  of  supplies.  To  destroy  the 
crops  of  this  season,  while  it  would  make  a  few  months  of  great 
distress,  might  save  many  years  of  long  misery.  As  Sherman  him¬ 
self  said,  “  war  is  cruelty,  and  you  cannot  refine  it.”  He  therefore 
took  the  promptest. means  to  put  an  end  to  it. 

On  the  15th  day  of  November  our  army  was  ready  for  their 
march  to  the  sea,  their  faces  set  joyously  toward  the  rising  of  the 


570 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


sun.  There  were  only  twenty  clays’  provisions  in  the  supply  wagons 
that  went  with  them.  The  men  were  ordered  to  live  on  the  enemy’s 
country,  finding  food  for  themselves  and  fodder  for  their  horses  in 
the  region  through  which  they  marched.  On  the  right  were  the  two 
army  corps,  led  by  General  Howard.  On  the  left  two  others,  under 
the  leadership  of  General  Slocum.  About  these  armies  hovered  a 
body  of  cavalry  under  General  Kilpatrick.  Moving  from  one  part 
of  the  army  to  another  was  Sherman,  the  head  and  front  of  this 
grand  “  march  to  the  sea .”  Behind  them  as  they  advanced,  sixty 
thousand  strong,  the  smoke  and  glare  of  burning  buildings  in 
Atlanta  shed  a  terrible  grandeur  on  the  scene.  All  the  stores,  pub¬ 
lic  buildings,  and  manufactories  that  had  remained  after  Hood’s 
evacuation,  were  now  consumed  by  Sherman’s  orders.  The  bands 
struck  up  the  army  battle-hymn,  with  the  quaint  chorus,  “  John 
Brown’s  body  lies  mouldering  in  his  grave  ;  but  his  soul  is  march¬ 
ing  on,”  —  and  the  tramp !  tramp !  of  soldiers  marching  out  from 
Atlanta  blended  with  the  strains,  while  countless  voices  all  over  the 
land  took  up  the  chorus  as  its  heroes  marched  to  restore  peace  to 
the  nation.  Old  John  Brown  had  become  the  apostle  of  the  wrar. 
The  name  of  this  poor  old  man,  so  lately  dying  a  despised  death  on 
the  gallows,  with  few  bold  enough  to  declare  themselves  his  friends, 
had  rung  over  hundreds  of  battle-fields  and  become  one  of  the 
watch-words  of  freedom.  “  The  mills  of  God  grind  slowly  ”  for  the 
most  part ;  but  between  the  years  1859  and  1864,  the  Divine  mills 
had  ground  exceeding  fast. 

The  army  moved  on  into  a  land  which  seemed  as  Canaan  to  the 
Jews,  “  overflowing  with  milk  and  honey.”  The  soldiers,  previously 
fed  on  salt  pork  and  hard-tack,  and  black  coffee  cooked  in  iron  ket¬ 
tles  over  camp-fi/es,  came  at  once  into  abundance.  Cut  off  from 
railroads,  the  people  of  central  Georgia  had  not  been  able  to  send 
their  crops  to  market.  Pits  hastily  dug  and  filled  with  sweet  pota¬ 
toes  ;  corn-fields  rich  with  yellow  corn ;  barnyards  crowded  with 
turkeys  and  chickens  ;  overfed  cattle  ;  cows  dropping  creamy  milk  ; 
pigs  ranging  in  the  woods  gorging  themselves  with  nuts  and  acorns, 
—  all  these  dainties  in  the  way  of  food  presented  themselves  to  the 
palate  of  the  hungry  soldiers.  Now  the  night  camps  were  scenes  of 
revelry.  Fat  turkeys,  impaled  on  sharp  sticks,  revolved  over  the 
coals  ;  roasts  of  beef  dropped  savory  juices  ;  cream  softened  the  flavor 
of  the  bitter  coffee  ;  eggs  were  beaten  into  omelets ;  sweet  potatoes 
roasted  in  hot  ashes  ;  the  fortunate  messmate  who  had  a  genius  for 


THE  MAHCH  TO  THE  SEA. 


571 


cookery,  received  the  blessings  of  his  companions.  Thus  luxuriously 
fed,  they  went  on  to  Milledgeville,  the  capital  of  the  State.  Little 
resistance  met  them  on  their  way.  A  few  regiments  here  and  there, 
scattering  companies  of  militia,  who  had  responded  to  the  frantic  ap¬ 
peals  of  the  Southern  leaders  to  “  put  every  obstruction  in  the  path 
of  the  enemy,”  were  all  that  encountered  Sherman’s  army.  From 
Milledgeville  they  went  to  Millen,  where  one  of  the  Southern  “  prison 


Prison  Pen  at  Millen. 


pens  ”  was  situated.  Here  in  the  midst  of  all  the  plenty  through 
which  the  army  had  marched,  our  poor  soldiers  had  died  of  starva¬ 
tion.  The  Southern  newspapers  and  leaders  had  pleaded  in  excuse 
for  their  suffering,  that  lack  of  food  for  themselves  had  prevented 
a  full  supply  to  their  prisoners. 

When  Sherman  reached  Millen,  the  Union  prisoners  had  been 
taken  away,  and  the  soldiers  were  disappointed  in  their  hope  of  res¬ 
cuing;  them.  Much  has  been  said  of  the  lawless  march  of  Sherman’s 
army  through  Georgia,  and  no  doubt  much  happened  that  was  be¬ 
yond  Sherman’s  control.1  But  the  sight  of  that  prison  pen  at  Millen, 
and  the  remembrance  of  our  soldiers  who  had  starved  there  in  the 
midst  of  plenty,  tended  to  excite  in  the  breasts  of  their  fellows  a 
desire  for  retribution  which  military  discipline  could  hardly  have 
checked. 

From  Millen,  they  continued  straight  on  to  the  Atlantic.  The 
end  of  the  march  was  at  Savannah,  where  General  Hardee,  with 
what  forces  he  could  collect,  awaited  him.  Part  of  Admiral  Dahl- 

1  There  were  a  class  of  men  who  followed  in  Sherman’s  track,  who  were  not  a  part  of  the  dis¬ 
ciplined  army,  and  often  committed  unauthorized  depredations.  Such  a  class  almost  invariably 
follows  the  track  of  an  army  after  war  has  been  prolonged.  These  were  called  “  bummers ,”  and 
were  supposed  to  feed  on  the  fat  of  the  spoils  in  this  Georgia  campaign. 


572 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


gren’s  fleet  lay  at  the  mouth  of  the  Ogeechee  River  just  out  of  range 
of  the  guns  of  Fort  McAllister,  which  protected  the  city. 

The  army  approached  Savannah  on  the  10th  of  December.  Sher¬ 
man  sent  General  Hazen  to  surround  Fort  McAllister,  and  on  the 
13th  ordered  him  to  assault.  The  fort  was  triumphantly  carried  in 
a  few  hours,  and  our  fleet  in  the  harbor  saw  “  Old  Glory  ”  waving 
gallantly  over  the  ramparts.  On  the  same  evening,  Sherman  moved 
into  the  fort,  and  made  his  head-quarters  there.  A  few  days  later, 
news  came  that  Hardee  had  secretly  embarked  his  army  in  boats, 
and  had  left  for  Charleston,  South  Carolina.  Sherman  had  hoped 
to  capture  the  army  in  Savannah,  and  was  disappointed  at  hearing  of 
Hardee’s  escape  ;  but  the  town,  rich  in  spoils  of  war,  remained  to  him. 
He  entered  it  on  the  20th  of  December,  his  men  uttering  irrepressible 
shouts  of  delight  as  they  reached  the  end  of  their  march.  Sherman  at 
once  telegraphed  to  Lincoln,  “  I  beg  to  present  you  as  a  Christmas 
gift,  the  city  of  Savannah,  with  one  hundred  and  fifty  guns,  plenty 
of  ammunition,  and  25,000  bales  of  cotton.”  I  think  President  Lin¬ 
coln  never  had  a  more  delightful  Christinas  present,  even  when,  as 
a  boy,  he  hung  his  stocking  up  in  the  chimney  corner. 

After  a  rest  from  their  long  journey  in  Savannah,  Sherman  asked 
Grant’s  permission  to  continue  the  march  of  his  army  through  North 
and  South  Carolina.  Grant’s  first  plan  had  been  to  send  for  Sher¬ 
man  to  join  him  by  water  from  Savannah,  but  he  gladly  acceded  to 
Sherman’s  wishes.  The  army  crossed  the  Savannah,  and  set  foot 
on  the  soil  of  that  State,  which  above  all  others  had  planned  the 
destruction  of  the  Union. 

Sherman  had  a  shrewd  way  of  dividing  his  armies,  and  threaten¬ 
ing  several  points  at  once,  so  that  the  enemy  were  puzzled  to  guess 
in  what  direction  he  meant  to  march  in  force.  Beauregard  and 
Hardee,  now  together  in  Charleston,  were  inclined  to  believe  that 
he  was  coming  upon  them.  But  Sherman  saw  that  Columbia  in  the 
interior  of  the  State  was  the  outer  wall  of  Charleston  ;  if  that  yielded, 
the  latter  town  would  probably  fall  into  his  hands.  He  therefore 
marched  upon  Columbia,  where  Wade  Hampton,  a  rebel  cavalry 
leader,  was  trying  to  rally  for  a  defense.  He  failed  in  this,  and  his 
rear  was  rapidly  leaving  the  town,  when  Sherman  reached  it.  The 
town  was  ours,  and  the  mayor,  coming  out,  received  Sherman  as  its 
conqueror.  The  streets  of  the  city  were  filled  with  bales  of  burning 
cotton,  set  on  fire  by  Hampton’s  orders.  The  white  flakes,  flying 
in  the  wind,  set  many  buildings  on  fire.  These,  added  to  the  public 


THE  MARCH  TO  THE  SEA 


573 


buildings  which  Sherman  destroyed  from  the  cruel  necessity  of  war, 
made  a  terrible  conflagration.  In  a  few  hours  the  town  was  a  mass 
of  ruins,  which  left  the  major  part  of  the  inhabitants  homeless  and 
shelterless.  Such  were  some  of  the  miseries  the  war  brought  on  the 
heads  of  those  who  brought  the  terrible  conflict  upon  the  nation. 
Alas  !  that  many  innocent  ones  suffered  equally  with  the  guilty. 

Sherman’s  calculation  was  correct.  The  fall  of  Columbia  settled 
that  of  Charleston.  On  the  17th  of  February  —  the  same  day  that 
Sherman  entered  Columbia  —  Beauregard  and  Hardee  left  the  chief 
city  of  secession,  and  went  to  find  General  Joseph  Johnston,  who 
was  mustering  in  North  Carolina  for  one  final  effort. 

It  was  a  day  of  jubilee  when  Charleston  was  ours.  Into  the  city, 
covered  all  over  with  scars  of  the  sieges  it  had  withstood,  our  troops 


Ruins  at  Charleston. 


marched  joyously.  Almost  as  soon  as  they  entered  a  party  was 
dispatched  to  Sumter,  and  the  flag  unfurled  over  its  broken  walls, 
while  a  thundering  chorus  of  cheers  went  up  from  the  men  who  had 
worked  so  long  for  the  reward  of  seeing  it  planted  there  once 
more. 

The  end  of  the  long  journey  drew  near.  Sherman  might  soon 
hope  to  shake  hands  with  his  superior  officer  on  the  soil  of  Virginia. 
Grant  had  already  sent  a  body-guard  to  meet  him  by  the  route 
through  Wilmington.  Wilmington,  a  little  back  from  the  mouth 


574 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


of  Cape  Fear  River,  was  guarded  by  Fort  Fisher,  just  at  the  river 
entrance.  Bragg  was  commanding  at  Wilmington,  greatly  to  the 
displeasure  of  some  of  the  rebels,  who  had  been  indignant  at  his 
want  of  success  in  Tennessee.  One  of  their  newspapers  had  lately 
announced,  “  General  Bragg  is  in  command  at  Wilmington.  Good- 
by,  Wilmington.” 

In  January  Grant  sent  General  Terry  with  an  army  to  take  Fort 
Fisher,  and  so  clear  the  way  to  Wilmington.  On  the  15th  of  Jan¬ 
uary,  the  fort,  after  a  gallant  siege,  fell  into  our  hands.  General 
Schofield,  who  had  been  with  Thomas  in  Nashville,  was  sent  to  join 
Terry  at  the  fort,  and  as  soon  as  he  reached  it  the  two  officers  began 
together  their  advance  to  Wilmington.  The  resistance  on  their  way 
to  that  city  was  slight.  On  the  22d  of  February,  the  anniversary 
of  Washington's  birthday,  Schofield  entered  Wilmington.  Bragg 
had  before  this  run  away  to  join  General  Johnston. 

Eighty-four  miles  from  Wilmington  lay  the  town  of  Goldsboro’. 
Here  Schofield  was  to  go  on  to  meet  Sherman,  who  was  marching 
upon  it  from  South  Carolina.  At  the  same  time  another  moving 
column  of  Union  troops  was  to  come  from  Newbern  —  which  we 
had  held  ever  since  Burnside  took  it,  —  also  to  unite  with  Sher¬ 
man  at  Goldsboro’.  Fancy,  then,  these  three  marching  columns  ; 
Sherman  from  the  southwest,  Schofield  from  the  south,  General 
Cox  from  Newbern,  almost  due  east,  all  converging  on  this  central 
meeting-point  at  Goldsboro’.  Here  General  Joseph  Johnston  was 
straining  every  nerve  for  a  final  contest.  It  was  like  a  drowning 
man  catching  at  a  straw.  He  had  with  him,  Bragg  from  Wilming¬ 
ton,  Hardee  from  Savannah,  Beauregard  from  Charleston,  and  Wade 
Hampton,  with  the  cavalry  he  had  vainly  endeavored  to  rally  at 
Columbia.  The  shattered  remnant  of  Hood’s  army  from  Nashville, 
had  joined  him.  Together  they  made  a  formidable  array. 

But  affairs  looked  dark  for  the  rebels.  Their  army  in  Tennessee 
had  been  broken  up,  Lee  was  beleaguered  by  Grant  in  Virginia ; 
Sherman  had  conquered  Georgia  and  South  Carolina  ;  if  he  now 
joined  Grant,  Lee’s  army  would  be  captured.  The  only  hope  of 
the  rebels  was  that  Johnston  might  defeat  one  or  all  of  the  armies 
marching  on  Goldsboro’,  prevent  their  junction  with  the  Army  of 
the  Potomac,  then  go  north  and  help  Lee  drive  Grant  from  his  post 
near  Richmond.  It  was  a  desperate  last  chance,  and  might  be  suc¬ 
cessful.  Johnston  had  gathered  in  all  about  40,000  men,  and 
thrown  himself  between  Sherman  and  Goldsboro’. 


THE  MARCH  TO  THE  SEA. 


575 


In  the  mean  time,  Sherman,  with  an  occasional  fight  between  the 
advance  of  his  army  and  the  rear  of  some  of  the  columns  who  were 
hurrying  to  join  Johnston,  marched  rapidly  on.  He  did  not  antici¬ 
pate  the  struggle  Johnston  was  preparing  for  him.  He  felt  as  if  he 
had  nearly  reached  the  end  of  his  journey  and  all  fear  of  serious  in¬ 
terruption  was  over.  But  on  the  morning  of  the  19th  he  came  up 
with  a  body  of  cavalry  who  seemed  disposed  to  stand  and  make  a 
stout  resistance.  General  Slocum,  who  commanded  the  portion  of 
the  army  thus  attacked,  thought  he  was  only  to  have  a  slight  skir¬ 
mish.  About  noon  a  deserter  from  the  rebels  was  brought  to 
the  general’s  tent,  who  told  him  that  all  Johnston’s  army  was  be¬ 
hind  this  front  of  cavalry,  and  that  Johnston  had  assured  his  soldiers 
that  morning  that  they  could  “  cut  Sherman  to  pieces.” 

At  once  word  was  sent  back  to  hurry  up  the  Union  troops  who 
were  lagging  behind.  The  fight,  which  had  begun  at  Bentonsville, 
only  a  few  miles  west  of  Goldsboro’,  grew  hotter  and  hotter.  The 
Union  general  waited  anxiously  for  his  expected  troops,  and  the 
afternoon  was  one  of  intense  expectancy.  General  Jefferson  C. 
Davis  —  a  national  officer  who  redeemed  the  misfortune  of  bearing 
the  same  name  as  the  traitor  in  Richmond,  by  deeds  of  great  brav¬ 
ery —  was  this  day  more  than  ever  a  hero.  Our  troops  made  a 
splendid  stand,  and  held  the  field  against  all  Johnston’s  terrible 
attacks.  When  darkness  came  they  had  not  budged  from  the  spot 
where  the  battle  began.  During  the  night,  several  fresh  divisions 
came  up  and  joined  the  advance,  making  our  line  too  strong  to  be 
broken.  There  was  skirmishing  all  the  next  day,  but  on  the  night 
of  March  20th  Johnston  fled,  leaving  the  track  to  Goldsboro’  clear. 
He  had  heard  that  Schofield  and  Terry  had  come  up  with  their 
divisions,  and  saw  that  further  resistance  to  the  junction  of  the  three 
armies  was  vain.  By  the  night  of  the  23d  the  tents  of  the  united 
columns  whitened  all  the  fields  about  Goldsboro’,  and  Sherman  was 
on  his  way  to  City  Point,  Virginia,  to  visit  Grant.  There  must 
have  been  a  very  happy  meeting  between  the  two  generals. 


576 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


CHAPTER  LIX. 

LAST  FLASHES  OF  WAR. 

Mobile  taken.  —  “Remember  Fort  Pillow.”  —  The  Last  Stand  at  Selma. — The  Post  before 
Petersburg.  —  Lee’s  last  Attempt.  —  Five  Forks.  —  Confusion  in  Richmond.  —  Lee’s  Surren¬ 
der  to  Grant.  —  The  last  Parade.  —  The  Cruel  War  is  over. 

Sherman’s  march  through  Georgia  and  the  Carolinas  placed 
every  rebellious  State  in  the  hands  of  the  government  except  Ala¬ 
bama.  The  fall  of  Charleston  restored  to  the  nation  every  seaport 
on  the  ocean  and  gulf  coast,  except  Mobile.  And  for  weeks  Farra- 
gut’s  fleet  had  lain  in  Mobile  Bay  ready  at  any  time  to  take  the  city. 
When  Sherman’s  success  was  assured  two  Union  armies  were  ordered 
to  advance  at  once  ;  one  from  the  north  upon  Alabama  ;  the  other 
along  the  Gulf  upon  Mobile.  General  Canby,  who  had  sent  a  part 
of  his  army  to  Nashville  to  aid  Thomas,  was  now  awaiting  its  return 
that  he  might  finish  the  work  begun  by  the  capture  of  Mobile  Bay  ; 
take  the  city,  and  clear  the  Gulf  of  traitors.  There  were  two  forts 
on  the  eastern  side  of  the  bay,  very  near  the  city.  These  were, 
Spanish  Fort  and  Fort  Blakeley.  Canby ’s  men  were  taken  in  trans¬ 
ports  to  Fort  Gaines,  one  of  the  forts  conquered  when  Mobile  Bay 
was  taken.  From  Fort  Gaines  he  moved  them  up  a  small  river,  from 


Redoubt  and  Ditch  at  Mobile. 


whence  they  marched  overland  to  Spanish  Fort,  till  within  a  few 
miles  of  its  walls.  On  the  28th  of  March  the  fort  was  inclosed  by 
our  batteries,  joined  by  the  gun-boats  which  had  come  up  the  river 
to  aid  in  the  siege.  For  twelve  days  a  circular  fire  from  boats  and 
batteries  poured  into  the  fort.  On  the  8th  of  April  an  assault  was 
made  upon  the  works,  which  carried  all  the  outer  line  of  the  rebels, 


LAST  FLASHES  OF  WAR. 


577 


ancl  made  longer  possession  of  the  fort  impossible  on  their  part.  At 
two  in  the  morning  of  the  9th  onr  troops  entered  it.  Only  six  hun¬ 
dred  men  remained  in  the  garrison.  The  rest  had  escaped  in  the 
night.  It  was  Sunday  when  the  troops,  tired  with  the  long  siege, 
took  possession  ;  but  there  was  not  yet  time  for  rest.  They  were 
ordered  at  once  to  attack  Fort  Blakeley,  the  only  remaining  point 
between  Mobile  and  our  army.  The  leadership  in  the  assault  was 
given  to  a  division  of  negro  soldiers,  in  whose  memory  the  massacre 
of  their  race  at  Fort  Pillow  was  still  fresh.  These  troops  rushed 
upon  the  defenses  at  Blakeley  with  terrible  fury,  shouting  the  battle- 
cry,  “  Remember  Fort  Pillow.”  Sunday  evening  the  red-stained 
battlements  of  Fort  Blakeley  were  carried.  Mobile  was  ours.  The 
rebels  began  to  flee  from  the  city  early  Monday  morning,  and  on 
Tuesday  the  flag  of  the  Union  waved  over  it.  The  coast  of  the 
Atlantic  and  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  were  redeemed. 

Meanwhile  affairs  were  progressing  in  Alabama.  Thomas  had 
given  a  force  of  cavalry  to  General  James  Wilson,  and  ordered  him 
to  clear  the  State  of  treason.  General  Dick  Taylor,  who  had  fought 
Canby  in  Texas,  and  Banks  in  Louisiana,  commanded  the  rebels  in 
Alabama,  as  well  as  in  Mobile.  His  most  efficient  aid  in  the  former 
State  was  General  Forrest.  But  Forrest’s  cavalry  had  been  reduced 
to  a  bare  remnant  of  its  old  numbers.  As  soon  as  Wilson  crossed 
the  Tennessee  River  into  Alabama,  he  marched  straight  toward 
the  town  of  Selma,  where  the  rebels  still  kept  a  number  of  manufac¬ 
tories  at  work  furnishing  guns  and  ammunition.  Forrest  saw  that 
Wilson  was  on  the  way  to  destroy  these  valuable  works,  and  hurried 
to  intercept  him.  Throwing  himself  across  the  road  to  Selma,  he 
made  one  attempt  to  prevent  his  advance,  but  finding  Wilson  too 
strong  for  him  he  fell  back  into  Selma,  and  intrenched  himself 
there.  Forrest  was  in  a  sad  plight.  With  the  remains  of  his  once 
famous  cavalry  and  some  miserable  militia,  principally  consisting  of 
old  men  and  boys,  he  had  not  half  as  many  men  as  Wilson.  The 
best  part  of  valor  lay  in  a  hasty  retreat.  But  General  Dick  Taylor, 
his  superior  officer,  was  in  the  town,  and  ordered  him  to  hold  it  at 
all  risks.  After  giving  this  order  Taylor  took  the  first  train  of  cars 
out  of  town  and  was  seen  there  no  more.  Forrest,  who  had  the 
manly  virtue  of  courage,  remained  and  did  his  best.  But  the  town 
was  soon  taken  with  many  prisoners,  and  its  manufactories,  work¬ 
shops,  and  store-houses,  were  burned  to  the  ground. 

Selma  was  taken  on  the  2d  of  April,  and  from  that  day  Wilson’s 


578 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


advance  was  more  like  a  triumphal  march  than  the  invasion  of  an 
army  into  the  enemy’s  country.  He  met  none  to  molest  or  make 
him  afraid.  He  marched  on  to  Montgomery  and  raised  the  Union 
flag  there.  Then  on  to  Georgia,  stopping  occasionally  to  disperse 


Ruins  at  Selma. 


the  last  wandering  detachments  of  rebel  cavalry  in  his  way,  till  he 
ended  his  journey  at  Macon.  There  news  reached  him  that  made 
farther  advance  unnecessary. 

W e  left  General  Grant  at  his  post  before  Petersburg.  After  that 
bloody  affair  of  the  mine  and  its  ill  success,  little  more  was  done  that 
winter.  Butler  had  moved  north  of  the  James  River,  and  taken  an 
important  stronghold  called  Fort  Harrison.  The  rebels  had  once 
attempted  to  recapture  it  without  success,  and  when  the  new  year 
opened  it  was  one  of  Grant’s  points  of  attack  upon  Petersburg. 

The  1st  of  January,  1865,  was  the  opening  of  a  dark  New  Year 
to  the  rebels.  The  Southern  Confederacy  was  at  its  last  gasp.  As 
a  final  resort,  Lee  advised  that  the  negroes  should  be  drafted  for  the 
army.  Perhaps  his  advice  might  have  been  taken,  if  there  had  been 
muskets  to  arm  them  or  even  meat  to  feed  them.  But  it  was  too 
late  to  consider  the  question  of  arming  their  slaves.  The  steady 
tramp  !  tramp  !  of  Sherman’s  advance  sounded  its  warning  in  Lee’s 
ears.  He  knew  that  advance  was  the  signal  for  his  destruction. 

On  the  25th  of  March  Lee  ordered  one  last  attack  upon  our  lines. 
It.  was  made  on  the  extreme  right  of  Grant’s  defenses,  situated  on 
Hall’s  Hill.  I  jee  hoped  here  to  break  through  Grant’s  lines  and  join 
Johnston  in  North  Carolina.  But  the  day,  which  began  brightly 
for  the  rebels,  ended  in  gloom.  They  surprised  the  Unionists  by 


LAST  FLASHES  OF  WAR. 


579 


Lee's  Residence. 


a  sudden  attack,  and  took  Fort  Steadman,  the  principal  point  in 
Grant's  defense.  They  held  it  only  a  short  time,  however.  The 
Unionists,  recovering  from  their 
surprise,  rallied  with  such  force 
that  the  rebels  were  driven  back 
with  great  slaughter.  For  the 
last  time,  Lee  retired  behind  his 
defenses  at  Richmond,  and  re¬ 
mained  silent  there.  The  rebel 
army  was  thinned  by  constant 
desertions.  Lee  could  not  muster 
more  than  50,000,  and  Johnston 
was  reduced  to  20,000  men. 

By  the  last  of  March  Grant  was 
ready  for  action.  The  weather 
was  growing  warm,  and  the  roads  firm  and  dry.  Muddy  roads 
had  been  one  of  the  powerful  aids  of  the  rebel  armies  in  the  South, 
and  the  drying  up  of  the  mud  was  hailed  with  delight  by  our  troops. 
About  the  1st  of  April  Sheridan  with  his  fresh  troops  from  West 
Virginia  joined  Grant,  and  received  a  warm  welcome.  Grant  told 
him  that  “  he  had  now  made  up  his  mind  to  end  this  matter,”  and 
Sheridan,  always  ready  for  warm  work  in  the  field,  assented  with 
alacrity  to  Grant’s  plans. 

Lee’s  defenses  now  stretched  for  forty  miles  in  a  circuit  about 
Richmond,  but  were  thin  in  comparison  to  their  length.  To  find  his 
weakest  point,  and  break  through  it,  was  Grant’s  purpose.  Four 
miles  west  of  the  end  of  Lee’s  lines,  a  cluster  of  roads,  branching  in 
five  different  directions,  was  known  as  Five  Forks.  Here  Grant 
believed  he  had  found  the  vulnerable  point  at  which  he  might  turn 
Lee’s  flank,  and,  getting  behind  him,  enter  Richmond.  On  the 
last  day  of  March  he  sent  Sheridan  towards  this  place  to  see  what 
could  be  done  there. 

Wary  as  the  fox,  who  grows  more  cunning  as  the  dog  gains  upon 
him,  Lee  saw  this  manoeuvre  as  soon  as  Sheridan  moved.  He  de¬ 
tached  every  man  that  could  be  spared  from  the  Petersbui’g  defenses, 
and  sent  them  at  once  to  oppose  Sheridan.  That  intrepid  hero  came 
near  being  defeated  at  Dinwiddie  Court  House,  where  the  rebels 
overtook  him  on  his  way  to  Five  Forks.  But  he  held  them  back, 
like  the  brave  fellow  he  was,  till  reinforcements  could  be  sent  to 
him,  and  next  morning  was  at  Five  Forks  with  a  strong  and  well 


580 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


conditioned  army.  He  had  driven  the  rebels  before  him  from  Din- 
widdie  Court  House,  and  they  were  hemmed  inside  their  defenses  at 
Five  Forks,  awaiting  his  charge. 

It  was  the  morning  of  April  1st,  known  in  the  calendar  as  “  All 
Fool’s  Day.”  There  was  some  delay  in  making  the  charge,  a  delay 
at  which  Sheridan  chafed  liked  a  caged  lion.  At  length,  at  nearly 
four  in  the  afternoon,  a  charge  was  ordered.  The  rebels  met  it 
manfully  ;  they  must  have  felt  that  their  resistance  was  a  forlorn 
hope,  yet  they  fought  well.  Nothing  could  avail  them.  The  battle 
at  Dinwiddie  had  nearly  decided  that  of  this  day.  In  a  short 
time  the  rebels. were  in  full  flight,  with  Sheridan’s  cavalry  spurring 
after  them.  All  broken  and  disordered  they  ran  hither  and  thither, 
falling  an  easy  victory  to  their  pursuers.  Sheridan  captured  this 
day  more  than  5,000  prisoners.  All  the  while,  at  Petersburg,  Grant 
was  hammering  away  on  the  defenses  there,  now  almost  drained 
of  men. 

Lee  was  a  man  hard  to  beat,  but  he  knew  when  he  was  beaten. 
When  the  scattering  fugitives  came  flying  to  Petersburg  with  the 
bad  news  of  their  defeat,  he  telegraphed  back  to  Jefferson  Davis, 
“  Richmond  must  be  evacuated  this  evening.”  It  was  then  Sun¬ 
day  morning,  and  the  messenger  was  obliged  to  follow  Mr.  Davis 
to  church  with  this  very  unwelcome  message.  The  people  of  Rich¬ 
mond  fully  believed  that  Lee  was  invincible,  and  Richmond  could 
not  be  taken.  Therefore,  when  the  gentleman  from  Mississippi, 
who  had  been  playing  the  part  of  “  President  of  the  Southern 
Confederacy,”  read  Lee’s  message  in  the  corner  of  his  pew,  he  was 
plainly  put  out  of  countenance.  The  news  fell  on  all  in  Richmond, 
says  one  of  their  historians,  “  like  a  thunder-clap  from  clear  skies, 
and  smote  the  ear  of  the  community  like  the  knell  of  death.” 

Then  a  scene  of  confusion  ensued,  such  as  one  sees  when  a  fire  is 
spreading  in  a  large  city.  Wagons,  hastily  loaded,  were  hurrying 
to  the  railway  station,  by  which  they  hoped  to  escape.  Women, 
children,  and  old  men,  hastened  to  leave  the  town  before  the  en¬ 
trance  of  the  army.  All  night  the  crowd  surged  in  the  streets. 
The  liquor  stores  were  broken  open,  and  thousands  helped  them¬ 
selves  freely  to  their  contents.  The  sidewalks  near  these  places 
were  strewn  with  broken  bottles,  and  the  shouts  of  the  maddened 
drunkards  at  their  orgies  filled  the  night.  Toward  morning  the 
shipping  at  the  wharves  was  blown  up  ;  tobacco  warehouses  and 
flour  stores  were  set  on  fire.  The  flames  spread  rapidly,  till  Rich- 


LAST  FLASHES  OF  WAR. 


581 


raond  was  wrapped  in  fire  and  smoke.  Its  roar  blended  with  the 
clamor  in  the  streets,  and  amid  terror,  destruction,  robbery,  fire,  and 
drunkenness,  the  night  ended.  A  fearful  night,  fit  for  the  fall  of  the 
blood-red  meteor  of  secession. 

Lee  left  Petersburg  the  night  of  April  2d,  following  the  line  of 
the  Appomattox  River  to  the  west.  Grant  began  a  pursuit  next 
morning.  But  there  was  hardly  need  of  pursuit.  The  rebel  sol¬ 
diers,  by  thousands,  threw  down  their  guns.  Starvation  stared 
them  in  the  face.  There  was  small  hope  left  in  the  breast  of  those 
most  enthusiastic  for  the  cause  of  secession. 

On  the  6th  of  April  Sheridan’s  cavalry  pressed  so  close  upon 
them,  that  a  part  of  the  fugitives  faced  about  and  made  a  desper¬ 
ate  resistance.  Weak  from  hunger  and  worn  with  hard  marches,  this 
forlorn  hope  fought  bravely,  but  were  finally  captured  with  nearly 
all  their  officers.  The  next  day,  Lee,  with  about  8,000  men,  all 
that  was  left  of  his  grand  army,  was  across  the  river  near  Appo¬ 
mattox  Court  House.  Jefferson  Davis,  and  the  officers  of  the  rebel 
government,  had  fled  to  Danville,  and  were  resolving  that  “  the 
Confederacy  would  fight  to  the  last  man.”  At  this  crisis  a  flag 
of  truce  came  from  Grant,  with  a  note  demanding  Lee’s  surrender. 
Lee  answered,  asking  what  terms  would  be  granted  him.  Then 
followed  an  exchange  of  letters  lasting  till  the  9tli,  when  the  two 
generals  agreed  to  meet  and  talk  the  matter  over.  They  met  in  a 
quiet  dwelling  in  the  little  cluster  of  houses  about  Appomattox  Court 
House.  Through  the  garden,  blossoming  fresh  with  spring  flowers, 
the  two  generals  walked  to  their  important  interview.  They  were 
both  quiet  and  reserved  men,  indulging  in  no  unnecessary  talk. 
Grant  said  afterwards,  “  I  was  covered  with  dust  and  mud  ;  I  had 
no  sword  ;  I  was  not  even  well  mounted.  I  found  General  Lee  in 
a  fresh  suit  of  Confederate  gray,  with  all  the  insignia  of  his  rank, 
and  by  his  side  the  splendid  dress  sword  given  him  by  the  State  of 
Virginia.” 

Their  talk  was  soon  ended.  The  “  Army  of  Virginia  ”  was  to 
disband  and  go  home,  every  man  pledging  himself  to  fight  no  more 
against  the  flag  of  the  Union.  After  the  settlement,  Lee  rode 
silently  back  to  his  camp.  The  news  had  preceded  him.  Great 
cheers  rose  from  the  ranks  as  he  rode  through.  There  were  proba¬ 
bly  few  men  among  them  who  were  not  heartily  glad  the  end  had 
come.  Lee  looked  at  them  with  a  pale,  sad  face.  “  Men,”  he  said, 
“  we  have  fought  the  war  together,  and  I  have  done  the  best  I  could 


582 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


for  you.”  It  was  true.  The  war  had  brought  forward  no  greater 
military  leader,  no  man  who  might  better  have  served  the  country 
which  he  had  chosen  to  desert. 

On  the  12th  of  April,  the  anniversary  of  the  attack  on  Sumter,  the 
rebel  army  had  its  last  parade.  Grant  generously  withdrew  his 
troops  from  sight  while  the  last  of  the  conquered  men  fixed  bayonets, 
stacked  their  guns,  flung  down  their  cartridge  boxes,  and  laid  over 
all  the  tattered  flags  they  had  carried.  There  were  tears  in  some 
eyes,  and  some  bent  to  kiss  the  ragged  colors  under  which  they  had 
fought. 

Into  every  dwelling,  North  and  South,  came  the  conviction  that 
at  last  “  the  cruel  war  was  over.”  Sherman  was  marching  toward 
Raleigh,  North  Carolina,  on  the  13th  of  April,  when  the  news 
reached  him.  He  was  then  moving  towards  Johnston.  On  the  15tli 
he  received  a  note  from  Johnston  asking  that  any  further  shedding 
of  blood  might  be  stopped.  Sherman  at  once  hastened  to  meet  him, 
and  received  his  surrender.  Close  upon  this  followed  Taylor’s  sur¬ 
render  to  Canby  in  the  Louisiana  department,  and  the  laying  down 
of  the  arms  of  all  the  rebels  across  the  Mississippi.  By  the  end  of 
May  there  was  not  one  armed  soldier  to  resist  the  authority  of  the 
nation.  The  two  armies  had  melted  like  snow  under  the  spring  sun, 
and  the  dreadful  sounds  of  war  were  hushed. 


CHAPTER  LX. 

THE  ASSASSINATION. 

The  Joy  of  the  Nation.  —  Last  Speech  of  Lincoln. — In  the  Theatre. — The  Murder. — Sew¬ 
ard’s  attempted  Assassination. — The  Last  Martyrs  to  Rebellion.  —  The  Murderer  at  Bay. 
—  His  Death.  —  Fate  of  the  Conspirators. 

You  must  picture  to  yourself  the  great  joy  of  the  loyal  people 
when  the  news  of  Lee’s  surrender  spread  over  the  land.  How  the 
telegraph  flashed  it  over  the  wires  from  city  to  town,  from  town  to 
village,  till  at  last  it  reached  the  lonely  homes  on  the  prairies,  or 
among  the  mountains,  where  only  the  slow  stage-coach  carried  the 
news.  How  it  was  heard  by  distant  companies  of  soldiers  guarding 
posts  in  the  heart  of  the  enemy’s  country,  or  busy  in  tearing  up  rail¬ 
roads,  cutting  telegraph  wires,  or  any  of  the  other  acts  of  destructive 
warfare.  The  happy  boys  in  blue,  to  whom  came  the  joyful  tidings, 
tossed  up  their  caps  for  joy.  Faces  shone  with  thankfulness  even  in 


THE  ASSASSINATION. 


583 


homes  that  would  from  thenceforth  be  forever  dark,  because  of  the 
dreadful  havoc  war  had  made  in  the  home  circle.  Everywhere  there 
was  gladness  that  the  struggle  which  had  almost  torn  the  nation  in 
twain,  was  at  last  over. 

Nobody  was  happier  than  Abraham  Lincoln.  All  these  foui 


years  the  lines  in  his  face  had 
grown  deeper  from  the  heavy 
cares  his  office  had  lain  upon  him. 
The  nation  had  re-elected  him  in 
the  fall  of  1864,  with  Andrew 
Johnson  as  vice-president,  and 
on  the  4tli  of  March  he  had  a 
second  time  taken  on  him  the 
heavv  duties  of  his  office.  The 

«y 

glad  news  of  Lee’s  surrender 
came  to  fill  him  with  new  life 
and  vigor.  Amid  the  shouts, 
bonfires,  and  illuminations  that 
showed  the  joy  in  the  capital, 
President  Lincoln  came  out  on 


Andrew  Johnson. 


balcony  of  the  White  House 


The  National  Capitol. 


and  asked  one  of  the  bands  to  play  the  tune  of  “  Dixie.”  This  air 
had  been  the  favorite  battle-music  of  the  rebels.  They  marched  to 


584 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


it  as  our  armies  marched  to  “  John  Brown.”  Said  President  Lincoln, 
“  I  have  always  thought  ‘  Dixie  ’  one  of  the  best  songs  I  ever  heard. 
Our  adversaries  over  the  way  attempted  to  appropriate  it.  But  1 
insist  that  yesterday  we  fairly  captured  it.  I  referred  the  question 
to  the  attorney-general,  and  he  gave  it  as  his  legal  opinion  that  it 
was  now  our  property.  I  now  ask  the  band  to  give  us  a  good  turn 
upon  it.” 

This  was  Abraham  Lincoln’s  last  public  speech.  At  that  very 
moment  the  pistol  of  the  assassin  was  loaded  for  him. 

Next  evening,  the  14th  of  April,  the  president  went  to  the  the¬ 
atre  to  see  a  popular  English  play,  called  “  Our  American  Cousin.” 
For  four  years  the  heavy  duties  of  his  great  office,  the  sorrow  which 
he  had  felt  at  the  horrors  of  the  war,  had  made  recreation  almost 
impossible.  But  the  war  was  over ;  he  could  lay  off  some  of  his 
cares.  There  was  now  to  be  a  little  time  for  laughter  and  enjoy¬ 
ment  ;  a  holiday  for  the  nation  and  its  president.  So  Mr.  Lincoln 
went  to  the  theatre,  sitting  in  full  sight  of  audience  and  actors,  in  a 
box  just  above  the  stage.  About  half-past  ten  o’clock  in  the 
evening,  as  the  play  drew  near  its  close,  a  man  named  John 
Wilkes  Booth,  wrapped  closely  in  a  cloak,  entered  the  box.  He 
came  up  behind  the  president  and  shot  him  in  the  back  of  the  head. 
The  ball  entered  the  brain,  Lincoln’s  head  drooped  forward,  his  eyes 
closed,  and  he  never  spoke  afterwards.  It  is  hoped  that  he  felt  no 

more  pain,  though  he  lingered  until 
next  morning,  and  then  quietly  passed 
away. 

After  the  shot,  the  murderer,  with 
the  cry,  u  Sic  semper  tyrannis  !  ” 
(u  Thus  may  it  be  always  with  ty¬ 
rants”),  leaped  over  the  box-railing 
down  upon  the  stage.  Rushing  has¬ 
tily  through  the  frightened  actors, 
hardly  conscious  what  had  been  done, 
he  escaped  through  a  back  entrance, 
mounted  a  horse  made  ready  for  him 
at  the  theatre  door,  and  rode  rapidly 
away. 

The  same  evening,  William  H.  Seward,  who  had  been  secretary  of 
state  all  through  Lincoln’s  administration,  was  lying  at  home  ill  in 
his  bed,  from  a  recent  fall  from  a  carriage.  As  he  lay  thus  help- 


William  H.  Seward. 


THE  ASSASSINATION. 


585 


less,  another  assassin,  named  “  Payne,”  entered  his  room,  fell  upon 
him  with  a  knife,  and  stabbed  him  three  times  in  face  and  neck. 
His  son,  who  was  in  the  room,  and  tried  to  defend  his  father,  was 
also  wounded.  As  the  alarm  arose,  and  the  household  was  aroused, 
the  assassin  made  his  escape,  stabbing  to  right  and  left  all  who  en¬ 
deavored  to  hold  him  back. 

This  news  of  horror  so  quickly  following  that  of  joy,  spread  over 
the  country,  filling  it  with  gloom.  This  unostentatious  man,  Abra¬ 
ham  Lincoln,  —  this  gentleman  of  the  people,  —  had  won  to  him¬ 
self  all  loyal  hearts.  His  face,  so  full  of  pathos,  winning  in  spite 
of  its  rugged  plainness,  his  manly,  truthful  nature,  his  noble  human¬ 
ity,  had  gained  him  the  regard  even  of  those  who  at  first  sneered  at 
the  “  vulgar  rail-splitter.”  Across  the  ocean  in  England,  where  he 
had  been  held  up  to  ridicule,  his  name  was  now  mentioned  with 
reverence.  From  the  hour  when  that  pistol  shot  made  him  a  mar¬ 
tyr,  the  last  of  the  long  train  of  martyrs  who  died  for  the  Union, 
Abraham  Lincoln’s  name  took  its  place  beside  that  of  George  Wash¬ 
ington,  and  the  memory  of  these  two  men  will  stand  together  as  long 
as  America  is  known  or  remembered. 

The  miserable  assassin,  as  he  leaped  from  the  box  upon  the  stage, 
had  caught  his  foot  in  the  American  flag,  which  draped  the  front  of 
the  President’s  box.  He  fell  forward,  and  broke  his  leg  in  the  fall. 
For  days  he  fled  with  the  limb  unset,  the  bone  working  through  the 
swollen  flesh,  in  an  agony  of  excitement  that  perhaps  deadened  him 
to  any  sense  of  pain.  A  party  was  at  once  sent  in  pursuit  of  him, 
and  on  the  21st  of  April  he  was  found  in  a  barn  near  Fredericks¬ 
burg.  Defiant  to  the  last,  he  stood  at  bay,  like  a  hunted  wild  ani¬ 
mal,  with  loaded  weapon,  prepared  to  take  the  life  of  any  one  who 
attempted  to  take  him  alive.  The  pursuers  at  length  fired  the 
barn  in  which  he  had  taken  refuge.  Before  the  flames  had  fairly 
spread,  an  army  sergeant,  named  Boston  Corbett,  fired  his  rifle  at 
him.  The  ball  entered  his  neck,  and  he  died  a  few  hours  later  in 
great  agony.  The  action  he  committed  was  so  wild  and  devoid  of 
reason,  that  it  has  been  charitably  thought  the  murderer  was  partly 
insane.  He  belonged  to  a  family  of  remarkable  actors.  His  father, 
one  of  the  most  famous  tragedians  of  his  time,  was  a  man  of  almost 
sentimental  tenderness  to  men  and  animals.  His  grandfather  was 
an  earnest  partisan  of  the  American  colonies  during  the  war  of  the 
Revolution,  and  he  kept  in  his  drawing-room  a  portrait  of  Washing¬ 
ton,  before  which  he  obliged  his  guests  to  uncover  their  heads.  By 


586 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


what  strange  caprice  their  descendant  ever  took  upon  himself  the 
assassination  of  so  just  a  man  as  Abraham  Lincoln,  can  never  be 
known.  After  Booth’s  death,  Payne,  the  assassin  who  attempted 
to  murder  Seward,  was  taken,  and  with  three  others  —  one  a  woman 
—  who  were  engaged  in  this  conspiracy  of  murder,  was  tried  and 
sentenced  to  death.  The  four  were  publicly  hanged  on  the  7th  of 
July,  1865. 


CHAPTER  LXI. 

THE  ACCESSION  OF  ANDREW  JOHNSON  AND  THE  ADMINISTRA¬ 
TION  OF  GRANT. 

Andrew  Johnson  succeeds  Lincoln.  —  The  Atlantic  Cable  laid.  —  Reconstruction  of  the 
South.  —  Attempt  to  Impeach  the  President.  —  Purchase  of  Alaska  and  St.  Thomas 
Island.  —  The  Thirty-seventh  State. — Jefferson  Davis.  —  Election  of  Grant  and  Colfax. — 
The  Ku  Klux  Klan.  —  The  Death  of  Edwin  M.  Stanton. 

Vice-president  Andrew  Johnson  took  the  presidential  chair 
in  the  midst  of  the  general  gloom  that  spread  over  the  land  at  the 
sad  news  of  Mr.  Lincoln’s  murder.  Andrew  Johnson  was  a  man 
of  limited  education,  but  with  sufficient  force  of  character  to  raise 
himself  from  one  political  office  to  another,  till  he  had  come  to  oc¬ 
cupy  a  seat  in  the  senate  of  the  United  States.  He  was  a  member 
from  Tennessee,  and  his  strong;  utterance  against  secession  had  made 
his  name  famous  among  the  loyal  people,  and  had  won  him  their 
votes  as  vice-president,  on  Mr.  Lincoln’s  second  election.  The  coun¬ 
try  looked  anxiously  to  him  as  the  successor  of  their  murdered  pres¬ 
ident,  to  carry  out  with  energy  the  measures  that  would  soonest 
bring  order  and  peace  back  to  the  States  so  long  distracted  by  war. 

Early  in  President  Johnson’s  administration,  one  of  the  most 
important  events  was  celebrated,  which  had  ever  happened  in  the 
history  of  any  nation.  This  was  the  laying  of  the  great  Atlantic 
cable  under  the  ocean,  from  America  to  England. 

Before  the  war  began  to  shake  the  land  with  its  thunders,  a  plan 
had  been  talked  of  for  binding  Europe  and  America  together  with 
a  telegraphic  wire,  which  should  lie  under  the  waters  of  the  Atlan¬ 
tic  Ocean,  by  means  of  which  the  two  continents  could  have  instant 
news  of  each  other.  Submarine  telegraphs  had  been  tried  and  been 
successful,  though  nowhere  over  so  wide  a  space  of  waters.  But  an 


ACCESSION  OF  ANDREW  JOHNSON. 


587 


American,  named  Cyrus  W.  Field,  who  had  ability  to  form  great 
enterprises,  energy  to  carry  them  out,  and  money  to  invest  in  them, 
determined  that  a  cable  should  be  laid  from  the  Western  to  the 
Eastern  hemispheres.  He  interested  rich  men  in  England  and 
America,  and  they  all  set  to  work  to  carry  out  the  project.  The 
cable  was  to  be  laid  from  the  Island  of  Newfoundland  to  the  shores 
of  Ireland,  because  the  distance  across  the  ocean  was  shorter  at 
these  points,  and  both  these  islands  were  connected  with  the  main 
land  by  other  shorter  marine  telegraphic  wires.  Thus  they  began 
in  1857  to  lay  the  wires  from  Ireland,  when  the  cable  parted,  and 
the  attempt  was  a  failure.  Undiscouraged,  they  tried  again  ;  this 
time  sending  the  vessel  which  bore  the  wire  out  to  mid-ocean  to 
begin  there  its  precious  deposit  into  the  deep.  Again  the  cable 
parted,  and  again  the  experiment  was  tried.  This  time  —  the 
third  —  it  was  at  first  successful,  and  a  message  from  Queen  Vic¬ 
toria,  of  ninety-nine  words,  was  sent  to  the  President  of  this  nation. 
The  whole  land  set  up  a  great  shout  of  rejoicing,  when  in  the 
midst  of  the  celebration  of  the  great  event  it  was  discovered  that 
the  cable  did  not  work  properly,  and  no  more  messages  could  be 
sent.  The  undaunted  leaders  of  the  enterprise  were  not  yet  dis¬ 
mayed,  but  kept  on  experimenting  in  all  kinds  of  wires,  determined 
that  they  would  yet  succeed  in  the  teeth  of  failure.  In  1865,  when 
they  thought  the}'-  had  now  a  perfect  cable  and  a  perfect  set  of  in¬ 
struments,  they  tried  again ;  and  again  the  cable  parted.  I  think 
even  the  patient  spider  would  hardly  have  spun  her  web  again  over 
a  chasm  which  had  baffled  her  skill  as  often  as  the  ocean  had  baf¬ 
fled  these  men.  But  Field  and  his  associates  could  teach  perse¬ 
verance  even  to  the  spider  ;  and,  for  the  fifth  time,  they  began 
cautiously,  and  with  the  civilized  world  waiting  the  result  with 
breathless  anxiety,  to  uncoil  their  wire  into  the  threatening  ocean. 
This  time  they  were  rewarded  by  success,  and  in  the  year  of  our 
Lord  eighteen  hundred  and  sixty-six  the  lightning  crossed  under 
the  waters,  and  carried  its  message  from  the  Old  World  to  the 
New.  Since  that  time  there  has  been  unbroken  telegraphic  com¬ 
munication  between  Europe  and  America. 

The  first  political  measures  of  Andrew  Johnson’s  administration 
were  directed  to  the  restoration  of  order  in  the  parts  of  the  country 
lately  in  rebellion,  and  were  called  the  Reconstruction  Acts,  because 
they  proposed  to  reconstruct  the  laws  and  social  structure  of  the 
States  which  had  endeavored  to  secede,  and  bring  them  into  harmony 


588 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


with  the  laws  of  the  United  States.  Congress  decided  that  the 
States  which  had  been  in  rebellion  were  not  yet  fitted  to  send  rep¬ 
resentatives  to  the  nation's  councils,  and  that  certain  conditions  must 
be  complied  with  before  they  could  be  again  admitted.  The  nine 
States,  therefore,  which  had  been  in  rebellion  :  Arkansas,  Alabama, 
Florida,  Georgia,  Louisiana,  Mississippi,  South  Carolina,  North 
Carolina,  and  Texas,  were  divided  into  five  military  districts  and 
put  under  martial  rule,  several  of  the  most  prominent  generals  in 
the  Union  army  being  installed  as  governors.  It  was  quite  natural 
that  there  should  still  have  been  much  bitter  feeling  between  North 
and  South,  and  that  the  declaration  of  peace  should  not  all  at  once 
have  been  felt- obligatory  in  the  portion  of  the  country  which  had 
been  up  in  arms. 

The  Southern  people  had  suffered  tragically  for  the  mistake  they 
had  committed  in  permitting  themselves  to  be  drawn  into  a  rebel¬ 
lion  against  the  government,  by  a  few  wrong-headed  leaders.  A 
sadder  story  will  never  be  told  than  that  which  could  be  repeated 
in  every  city,  town,  and  village  of  the  seceding  States.  Many  fami¬ 
lies,  who  before  the  rebellion  had  lived  in  affluence,  saw  every  lux¬ 
ury,  and  almost  every  comfort,  carried  away  in  the  dire  course  of 
war.  Delicate  women,  unused  to  toil,  had  been  driven  almost  to 
starvation,  in  attempts  to  support  themselves  and  their  families  by 
the  needle  or  some  other  form  of  feminine  labor.  The  war,  like 
the  plague  that  passed  over  Egypt,  had  stricken  down  the  first-born 
in  thousands  of  families.  Husbands,  fathers,  sons,  had  perished  on 
bloody  battle-fields,  leaving  the  helpless  women  only  an  inheritance 
of  sorrow  and  poverty.  They  saw  their  houses  in  ruins  ;  their  plan¬ 
tations  pass  into  the  hands  of  strangers  ;  and  their  chattel  slaves 
free  men  and  women.  The  heart  aches  in  contemplating  the  mis¬ 
ery  endured  by  them,  and  in  reflecting  how  many  suffered  for  causes 
in  which  they  had  no  part. 

Now  that  the  hopeless  struggle  was  over,  the  wiser  and  more  in¬ 
telligent  among  the  Southern  people  accepted  the  situation,  and 
were  inclined  to  become  peaceable  and  law-abiding  citizens  under 
the  old  flag  ;  but  there  were  still  a  part  of  the  people  who  cher¬ 
ished  the  old  hostility,  and  there  was  still  much  hot  blood  to  grow 
cool  in  rebellious  veins  before  peace  could  properly  be  said  to  be 
established. 

Congress  made  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution  which  was 
called  the  Fourteenth  Amendment,  providing  that  race  or  color 


NEW  TERRITORIES  BOUGHT. 


589 


should  be  no  bar  to  the  right  of  suffrage,  and  making  it  a  condition 
of  the  admission  of  all  the  States  under  military  rule,  that  they 
should  pass  this  amendment.  As  this  would  give  the  black  men  a 
right  to  a  vote,  and  as  several  States  thus  outside  the  Union  had 
about  as  many  blacks  as  whites,  it  will  be  seen  that  this  was  a  diffi¬ 
cult  amendment  for  them  to  accept,  as  it  practically  put  the  political 
power  into  the  hands  of  their  former  slaves.  But  Congress  was 
resolute  to  insist  upon  this.  They  claimed  that  the  black  people 
during  the  war  had  been  the  only  part  of  the  South  loyal  to  the 
government ;  that  they  had  by  means  of  the  war  become  a  free  peo¬ 
ple  ;  that  they  needed  the  ballot  to  protect  them  from  the  whites, 
who  might  oppress  them  and  deprive  them  of  their  liberties,  if  they 
were  not  given  equal  political  rights. 

On  all  these  matters  connected  with  reconstruction,  Congress  and 
the  new  president  differed  so  widely,  that  at  last  he  stood  in  open 
hostility  to  the  party  which  had  elected  him.  He  was  accused  by 
them  of  cooperating  with  the  enemies  of  government  and  of  oppos¬ 
ing  the  passage  of  all  such  bills  as  would  aid  in  restoring  order. 
So  strong  was  the  feeling  against  him  that  he  was  openly  charged 
with  treason,  and  the  attempt  was  made  to  impeach  him.  He  was 
brought  to  trial  on  the  charge  of  high  crimes  and  misdemeanors  in 
the  administration  of  his  office  ;  but  was  finally  acquitted,  although 
in  the  senate  thirty-five  voted  him  guilty  against  nineteen  who 
voted  not  guilty. 

The  United  States  had  little  time  to  attend  to  any  acquisition  of 
property  or  territory  during  her  civil  war,  but  she  was  no  sooner 
out  of  the  flame  and  smoke  of  conflict  than  she  extended  her  bound¬ 
aries  to  include  the  Russian  possessions  in  America.  She  bought 
of  the  Empire  of  Russia  the  icy  peninsula  of  Alaska,  and  gave,  in 
May,  1867,  $7,200,000  for  the  title  to  her  lands  on  our  continent. 
Alaska  is  a  frigid  and  very  uninviting  country,  not  much  inhabited 
except  by  Indians,  and  containing  a  few  scattered  trading  posts 
where  dwell  the  families  of  Russian  officials  stationed  there,  and  a 
larger  population  of  mixed  blood,  the  offspring  of  Russian  and  native 
alliances.  Its  principal  source  of  revenue  is  its  fur  trade,  and  it 
produces  yearly  great  store  of  otter  and  seal,  beaver,  fox,  and  martin 
skins.  Besides  the  acquisition  of  this  new  territory,  in  this  year  a 
new  State  was  added  to  the  Union.  This  was  Nebraska,  which 
applied  for  admission  and  was  made  the  thirty-seventh  State. 

Would  you  like  to  hear  what  became  of  Jefferson  Davis,  the  un- 


590 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


fortunate  make-believe  president  of  the  seceding  States  ?  When 
Lee’s  surrender  had  killed  the  last  hope  of  success  in  every  rebel 
breast,  Jefferson  Davis,  with  his  family  and  a  few  friends,  hurried 
south  to  reach  some  port  on  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  by  which  he 
might  flee  from  the  country.  He  got  into  the  heart  of  Georgia, 
where  General  Wilson  and  his  cavalry  were  still  guarding  the  State. 
Wilson  heard  of  Davis’s  whereabouts,  and  sent  out  detachments  in 
different  directions  to  watch  for,  and  if  possible  capture  him.  One 
of  these  parties  entered  the  town  of  Irwinsville,  and  approached  a 
house  that  had  been  suspected.  Here  they  met  a  singular- looking 
figure,  tall  and  gaunt,  oddly  attired  in  a  woman’s  wrapper,  with  a 
shawl  drawn  over  the  head,  carrying  a  pail  as  if  to  draw  water  from 
a  spring  nearby.  The  leader  of  the  soldiery  challenged  this  strange 
object,  and  the  shawl  and  wrapper  removed,  the  marked  form  and 
features  of  Jefferson  Davis  appeared  under  the  flimsy  disguise.  He 
had  almost  made  a  successful  escape,  for  horses  and  all  preparations 
for  flight  were  awaiting  him  at  the  spring  in  a  coppice  hard  by.  He 
was  taken  prisoner,  and  confined  in  some  pleasant  apartments  in 
Fortress  Monroe,  where  he  remained  until  1867,  awaiting  his  trial 
for  treason. 

He  was  at  last  allowed  to  go  free  upon  finding  bondsmen  who 
subscribed  to  a  large  amount  of  bail  which  he  was  required  to  give 
as  security  for  his  appearance  if  he  was  ever  summoned  to  trial. 
One  of  his  principal  bondsmen  was  the  celebrated  journalist,  Horace 
Greeley,  the  editor  of  the  “  New  York  Tribune,”  one  of  the  most 
earnest  and  loyal  newspapers  in  the  country.  Since  his  release  Jef¬ 
ferson  Davis  has  fallen  naturally  into  obscurity,  and  will  probably 
never  be  heard  of  in  history  again.  If  you  have  ever  read  how  se¬ 
verely  treason  has  been  punished  in  other  countries  you  will  realize 
how  lenient  our  government  has  been  to  those  who  endeavored  to 
destroy  it.  Up  to  this  time  no  individual  has  been  punished  for 
treason  against  the  government  by  a  penalty  severer  than  imprison¬ 
ment. 

The  fall  of  1867  was  agitated  by  the  presidential  contest,  in 
which  General  U.  S.  Grant,  who  had  proved  himself  so  able  a 
leader  during  the  war,  was  made  president.  With  him,  as  vice- 
president,  Schuyler  Colfax  was  elected,  a  man  who  was  an  ardent 
patriot,  and  had  long  and  honorably  served  his  country  in  various 
offices.  They  were  inaugurated  March  4,  1868,  in  the  capital  which 
Grant  had  so  noble  a  share  in  preserving  to  his  country. 


THE  KU  KLUX  CLAN. 


591 


President  Grant’s  administration  took  up  the  work  of  reconstruc¬ 
tion,  and  endeavored  to  wipe  out  the  last  traces  of  war.  In  spite 
of  the  military  rule  established,  and,  as  many  discontented  people 
declared  —  on  account  of  that  very  rule,  there  were  still  constantly 
arising  troubles  in  the  South  ;  and  the  military  governors  had  to 
make  frequent  complaints  and  appeals  for  help  to  the  central  gov¬ 
ernment.  Tennessee,  especially,  was  disturbed  by  reports  of  the 
outrages  of  a  secret  society,  known  as  the  Ku  Klux  Klan ,  who  were 
said  to  be  an  organized  band  of  men  who  had  formerly  been  in  re¬ 
bellion,  and  who  were  now  engaged  in  committing  all  sorts  of  des¬ 
perate  outrages  on  the  Union  residents,  and  particularly  on  the 
blacks.  This  organization  was  said  to  consist  of  40,000  men  in 
Tennessee  alone,  and  in  North  Carolina  rumor  declared  it  no  less 
formidable.  On  the  other  hand,  many  of  the  southern  people  denied 
the  existence  of  any  organization  of  the  kind,  and  between  the 
affirmatives  and  denials,  it  is  difficult  even  now  to  get  at  the  truth 
of  the  matter.  Governor  Brownlow  of  Tennessee,  however,  who 
was  a  man  always  staunchly  loyal  to  the  government,  did  believe  in 
the  Ku  Klux  Klan,  and  made  energetic  laws  to  suppress  it.  He 
made  it  a  criminal  offense  to  belong  to  any  such  society,  and  made 
every  person  who  took  office,  swear  an  oath  that  he  did  not  belong 
to  any  Ku  Klux  party.  In  North  Carolina,  a  committee  appointed 
to  investigate  the  matter  reported  a  secret  organization  of  this  kind, 
and  said  they  were  the  dregs  of  the  civil  war,  an  army  of  criminals, 
committing  all  sorts  of  violence.  Finally  President  Grant  issued  a 
proclamation  commanding  any  such  secret  society  to  disperse,  and 
although  for  two  or  three  years  there  was  much  newspaper  agitation 
about  the  Ku  Klux,  and  no  doubt  many  deeds  of  violence  were 
committed  in  the  South,  the  excitement  gradually  died  out  as  time 
removed  us  farther  from  the  war,  and  little  is  heard  now  of  these 
dangerous  enemies  to  peace  and  order. 

In  1869,  the  second  year  of  the  administration  of  Grant  and 
Colfax,  came  the  death  of  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  who  had  been  secre¬ 
tary  of  war  through  most  of  Mr.  Lincoln’s  administration.  All 
through  the  gloomy  days,  when  next  to  the  president,  this  was  the 
most  trying  and  responsible  official  position  in  the  land,  Secretary 
Stanton  had  been  a  most  efficient  though  somewhat  stern  officer  and 
had  held  firmly  to  his  line  of  duty.  During  Johnson’s  administration 
the  difference  between  himself  and  the  president  had  been  so  serious 
that  Johnson  had  ordered  him  to  resign  his  office,  and  in  his  stead 


592 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


appointed  Grant  secretary.  But  as  soon  as  Congress  met  again 
they  refused  to  approve  the  president’s  action,  and  put  Stanton 
again  in  his  place,  which  Grant  promptly  vacated  as  soon  as  he 
knew  the  will  of  Congress. 

This  was  in  1867,  and  Stanton  continued  in  the  cabinet  till  the 
next  year,  when  the  president  again  removed  him,  appointing  Gen¬ 
eral  Thomas  in  his  place.  On  this  Stanton  refused  to  give  up  his 
office,  and  was  sustained  by  Congress,  who  resolved  that  the  presi¬ 
dent  had  no  power  to  make  these  arbitrary  removals.  All  these 
events  had  made  Stanton  an  important  man,  and  as  he  showed  abil¬ 
ity  quite  equal  to  his  position  his  loss  was  a  great  one  to  the  nation. 


CHAPTER  LXII. 

EVENTS  FROM  1869  TO  1872. 

The  Pacific  Railway  finished.  —  The  Enemies  of  the  Work.  —  Indian  Outrages.  —  The  Slaugh¬ 
ter  at  Fort  Philip  Kearney.  —  Peace  and  War  Measures.  —  Death  of  George  H.  Thomas.  — 
Fires  in  Chicago  and  the  Northwest. 

An  important  work  done  in  the  year  1869  was  the  completion  of 
the  railroad  to  the  Pacific  coast,  thus  making  a  link  which  brought 
the  two  great  oceans  of  the  world  into  close  companionship.  This 
had  long  been  talked  about,  and  Congress  had  sent  officers  to  ex¬ 
plore  the  country  west  of  the  Mississippi  River,  across  the  con¬ 
tinent  to  California,  and  find  the  best  place  to  build  a  road  thither. 
California,  now  a  large  and  prosperous  State,  lent  her  energy  to  the 
achievement,  and  year  after  year  the  work  was  urged  forward  till 
the  12th  of  May,  1869,  when  the  end  of  the  great  work  was  reached. 
The  scene  of  the  celebration  was  a  grassy  valley  in  the  territory  of 
Utah,  at  the  head  of  the  great  Salt  Lake.  Although  it  was  so  far 
from  any  large  city,  there  were  over  3,000  people  gathered  to  be¬ 
hold  the  ceremony  of  finishing  the  road.  The  last  railroad  tie  was 
made  of  the  beautiful  wood  of  the  California  laurel-tree,  finished 
with  silver  bands  :  a  gold  spike  from  California,  a  silver  one  from 
Nevada,  and  one  of  mixed  gold,  silver,  and  iron  from  Arizona,  were 
driven  home  to  fasten  the  last  rail,  by  the  officers  of  the  two  com¬ 
panies  ;  and  then  two  engines  —  one  coming  from  California  over 
the  mountain  range  of  the  Sierra  Nevada,  and  the  other  crossing 


BUILDING  OF  THE  PACIFIC  RAILWAY. 


593 


tne  great  plains  of  the  Northwest  and  cutting  through  the  spurs  of 
the  Rocky  Mountains  —  steamed  slowly  together  till  they  touched 
each  other  front  to  front,  and  the  engineers  from  the  West  and  East 
shook  hands  in  congratulation  across  the  narrow  line  of  separation. 
The  last  rail  in  the  great  work  was  laid,  and  the  dream  of  Colum¬ 
bus,  and  all  the  great  sailors  of  his  day,  of  a  short  route  to  the 
Indies,  was  here  realized.  From  Europe  to  America  in  nine  days, 
from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  Ocean  in  seven  more,  and  across 
the  Pacific  to  the  Isle  of  Cipangu  and  the  rich  coasts  of  Cathay  in 
twenty  more,  —  the  wildest  dreams  of  the  fifteenth  century  could 
hardly  have  pictured  a  shorter  journey  to  the  East. 

In  its  course  through  the  plains  the  Pacific  Railroad  had  met  with 
a  persistent  and  jealous  foe  in  the  Indian,  who  saw  in  it  a  terrible 
enemy  to  his  race.  The  story  of  troubles  with  the  Indians  has  been 
a  continuous  one  since  the  Pilgrims  landed  at  Plymouth,  or  the 
Virginia  colonies  began  their  settlement  at  Jamestown.  The  strag¬ 
gle  has  never  ceased  upon  the  border  line,  where  the  white  pioneer 
pressed  against  the  Indian  aborigine,  and  it  will  probably  never 
come  to  an  end  till  the  last  Indian  has  been  exterminated  upon 
his  native  soil  or  been  pushed  westward  into  the  Pacific  Ocean. 
Knowing,  as  the  Indian  must  know  from  tradition  and  observa¬ 
tion,  that  the  coming  of  the  white  man  is  fatal  to  him,  it  is  not 
strange  that  he  should  have  watched,  with  hostile-  eyes,  the  estab¬ 
lishment  of  military  posts  along  the  line  the  railroad  was  to  fol¬ 
low,  and  the  preparations  for  laying  the  rails  over  the  plain  where 
the  deer  and  the  buffalo,  his  chief  means  of  subsistence,  as  yet 
roamed  unscared  by  the  whistle  of  the  locomotive. 

Amid  our  civil  war  the  Indians  were  unusually  troublesome. 
They  had  attacked  the  white  settlers  on  the  frontiers,  and  threat¬ 
ened  the  military  outposts  of  the  Western  borders.  All  along  on  the 
great  lines  of  travel  across  the  plains  to  the  gold  regions  of  Califor¬ 
nia,  or  the  mines  of  Colorado  and  the  Rocky  Mountains,  in  the  terri¬ 
tories  where  emigrants  were  coming  to  build  up  their  towns,  the  In¬ 
dians  resented  the  occupation  of  lands  which  they  considered  their 
own.  And  when  we  think  of  it,  their  case  was  often  a  hard  one. 
The  building  of  new  towns  drove  away  their  game,  and  they  were 
often  pinched  by  hunger;  the  white  man  who  had  come  over  the 
plains  in  the  latest  emigrant  train  to  parcel  out  his  farm  from  the 
great  tracts  of  the  new  territories,  had  very  little  thought  of  the 
prior  claim  of  a  roaming  savage.  When  he  sought  for  a  comfortable 

38 


594 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


site  for  his  dwelling,  —  the  fair  spot  by  the  nearest  water-course,  — 
he  did  not  reflect  that  he  sometimes  drove  out  wild  occupants  who 
knew  the  advantages  of  such  a  spot  as  well  as  he.  And  when  our 
government  appointed  Indian  agents  to  protect  the  Indian,  or  to 
feed  him  when  hungry,  he  was  often  cheated  by  men  who  put  the 
money  into  their  own  pockets  which  the  country  had  paid  to  buy 
the  good-will  of  the  Indians.  When  the  gold  mines  were  discovered 
twenty-five  years  ago,  in  California,  a  treaty  had  been  made  pay¬ 
ing  the  Indians  a  large  sum  for  the  privilege  of  crossing  their  lands 
on  the  way  thither,  and  ten  years  later  when  the  Colorado  mines 
were  opened  up,  another  treaty  was  made  of  a  similar  kind.  But  it 
is  said  by  those  who  have  studied  the  matter  closely,  that  the  In¬ 
dians  never  got  their  money  fairly,  that  they  were  cheated  with 
poor  goods,  bad  food,  and  miserable  blankets,  sold  to  them  by  un¬ 
principled  men,  and  that,  when  we  accuse  them  of  keeping  no  trea¬ 
ties,  and  breaking  faith  with  us,  we  should  hear  much  the  same 
story  on  the  other  side,  told  in  the  Indian  tongue.  And  although 
the  attacks  of  the  Indians  in  war  are  cowardly,  their  manner  of  war 
blood-thirsty  and  horrible,  they  w7ere  sometimes  met  by  the  white 
soldiery  in  a  spirit  of  bloody  reprisal,  which  almost  equaled  the  sav¬ 
age  spirit.  As  in  a  massacre,  known  as  the  Sand  Creek  Massacre, 
where  a  large  party  of  Indians,  who  had  sued  for  peace,  were  gath¬ 
ered  together  awaiting  an  answer,  and  unprepared  for  war,  they 
were  set  upon  by  a  party  of  United  States  soldiers,  and  all  of  them 
slaughtered,  men,  women,  and  children,  alike.  This  was  a  piece  of 
savagery  which  could  not  be  improved,  even  by  a  band  of  Arrapahoe 
or  Cheyenne  Indians  in  the  full  glory  of  war-paint,  their  war-girdles 
hung  with  scalps. 

In  1866  the  government  ordered  the  establishment  of  a  new  mili¬ 
tary  post  in  Dakota,  at  Fort  Philip  Kearney,  which  the  Indians  had 
threatened  they  should  attack  if  built.  In  the  last  of  December 
they  drew  a  party  of  troops  out  to  a  point  several  miles  from  the  fort, 
and  then  set  upon  them  in  great  numbers,  killing  three  officers  and 
ninety  men,  mutilating  their  bodies  with  tomahawks,  piercing  them 
with  arrows,  and  cutting  off  all  the  scalps.  General  Hancock  was 
sent  out  and  held  a  council  in  which  some  of  the  chiefs  declared 
they  wanted  peace,  but  as  they  dispersed  they  murdered  several 
white  men  in  their  course,  thus  giving  the  lie  to  their  words  of  peace. 
In  1867  and  1868,  affairs  with  the  Indians  were  at  their  worst.  It 
was  said  that  scattered  over  the  plains  about  the  Pacific  Road  there 


INDIAN  WARS. 


595 


were  11,000  painted  warriors,  of  different  tribes,  who  had  formed  a 
union  against  the  common  enemy.  The  building  of  the  railway  was 
kept  back,  the  building  stock  stolen,  the  mail-stages  robbed,  the  pas¬ 
sengers  murdered,  and  the  settlers  in  these  regions  suffered  con¬ 
stantly  all  the  horrors  of  a  savage  war. 

One  of  the  causes  of  complaint  on  the  part  of  the  Indians  was  that 
the  railroad  cut  through  their  best  hunting  grounds,  and  would  scare 
away  their  game.  The  United  States  yielded  so  far  as  to  change 
slightly  the  course  of  the  road  and  withdraw  one  or  two  military 
posts.  But  in  spite  of  such  complaints  the  great  work  must  go  on. 
Could  it  be  expected  that  a  few  savages  should  stop  the  march  of 
civilization,  the  opening  up  of  the  mines  of  Colorado  or  Montana, 
the  building  of  cities  on  the  plains  of  the  Great  West?  As  well 
might  a  group  of  these  same  dirty  naked  savages,  expect  by  stand¬ 
ing  in  its  track  to  stop  the  course  of  the  locomotive.  The  iron  mon¬ 
ster  would  simply  crush  them  under  its  wheels,  leaving  their  man¬ 
gled  bodies  for  the  crows  to  peck  at. 

General  Grant,  who  had  a  good  deal  of  sympathy  with  the  Indian, 
advocated  gentle  measures,  and  in  accordance  with  his  message  on 
that  subject,  a  peace  commission  was  formed  to  treat  with  them. 
Various  treaties  had  been  made  and  broken,  and  several  of  the 
tribes  promised  to  give  up  tracts  in  Montana  and  some  of  the  other 
territories  they  had  occupied,  and  move  upon  new  reservations  laid 
out  for  them  in  Southern  Kansas,  west  of  Arkansas,  and  north 
of  Nebraska,  but  when  the  time  came  there  was  delay  and  resis¬ 
tance  among  them.  And  all  the  time  came  news  of  fresh  outrages 
in  Colorado,  Idaho,  Arizona,  and  elsewhere.  Solitary  farms  were 
attacked,  houses  burnt,  men,  women,  and  children  scalped,  the 
victims  mutilated,  and  from  Kansas  especially  came  loud  cries  to  the 
government  for  protection.  General  Philip  Sheridan  was  sent  in  1868 
to  see  if  he  could  not  bring  these  insubordinate  savages  to  reason. 

I  think  he  believed  the  best  way  would  be  to  exterminate  them  as 
one  would  any  sort  of  vermin,  and  so  get  rid  of  them  altogether.  His 
measures  were  sharp  and  severe,  and  on  Christmas  day,  1868,  he  de¬ 
stroyed  a  Camanche  village,  putting  all  to  the  sword,  and  wrote 
back  to  the  seat  of  government  on  the  1st  of  January,  1869,  that  he 
believed  he  had  given  the  final  blow  to  the  back-bone  of  Indian 
rebellion,  and  reported  that  the  Indians  were  begging  for  peace. 
Whether  it  was  these  salutary  measures,  or  the  gentler  influence  of 
peace  commissions  that  abated  savage  fury,  is  not  now  quite  certain. 


596 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


In  his  message  of  1869,  the  President  claimed  that  the  peaceful 
measures  had  been  very  successful  in  their  workings,  and  since  that 
time,  and  the  opening  of  the  Pacific  Railway,  there  has  been  onty  an 
occasional  outbreak,  here  and  there,  among  these  tribes  with  whom 
we  had  been  at  war.  Whether  any  permanent  peace  can  ever  be 
made  or  not,  or  when  we  shall  have  the  account  of  the  last  Indian 
war,  remains  to  be  seen.  The  country  has  been  experimenting  in 
Indian  affairs  for  about  275  years,  and  they  seem  to  be  doing  very 
little  better  in  that  way  in  the  nineteenth,  than  in  the  seventeenth 
century. 

During  the  year  1870  we  lost  a  man  whom  the  country  could  ill 
spare.  This  was  her  faithful  servant,  General  George  H.  Thomas, 

whom  we  have  heard  of  always 
with  honor  during  the  War  of 
the  Rebellion.  He  was  a  na¬ 
tive  of  Virginia,  and  hence  his 
loyalty  to  his  country  wears  a 
special  grace,  since  liis  native 
State  had  seceded.  He  died 
of  apoplexy  in  California,  in 
March,  1870. 

In  the  fall  of  1871,  one  of 
the  largest  cities  of  the  United 
States  was  the  scene  of  the 
most  terrible  fire  ever  recorded 
in  history.  This  was  in  Chi¬ 
cago,  which,  although  compara¬ 
tively  a  young  city,  and  built  up  with  a  rapidity  hardly  to  be  be¬ 
lieved  in  except  by  those  who  have  seen  the  growth  of  a  western 
town,  was  a  marvel  of  fine  buildings  and  of  pleasant  homes,  built  on 
what  was  at  first  only  an  unsightly  muddy  spot  on  the  banks  of  the 
noble  Lake  Michigan.  One  Sunday  evening  in  October,  a  terrible 
fire  broke  out  in  the  western  division  of  the  city,  chiefly  built  up 
with  wooden  houses,  where  flames  could  spread  rapidly.  In  a  few 
hours  it  had  ravaged  the  finest  business  portion  of  the  city,  burning 
up  the  public  buildings  —  lapping  up  with  its  thousand  tongues  of 
flame  street  after  street  of  magnificent  stores,  warehouses,  and  man¬ 
ufactories,  and  reaching  over  to  the  quarter  where  were  the  choicest 
private  houses,  to  devour  in  a  few  brief  hours  the  homes  of  thou¬ 
sands  of  people,  thus  made  suddenly  homeless  and  beggared.  The 


Major-general  George  H.  Thomas. 


FIRES  IN  THE  NORTHWEST. 


597 


loss  was  estimated  at  $190,526,000  ;  but  the  losses  in  homes,  which 
can  never  be  restored,  cannot  be  counted  up.  The  city  is  now 
largely  rebuilt,  and  the  energetic  people  of  this  city  on  the  Lake 
have  ever  since  been  busy  at  work  retrieving  their  fortunes,  which 
so  suddenly  were  turned  to  ashes.  In  this  same  fall  the  whole  north¬ 
west  country  seemed  to  be  in  an  inflammable  condition,  and  fires, 
devastating  large  tracts  of  country  in  Northern  Wisconsin,  Michi¬ 
gan,  and  Minnesota,  were  constantly  heard  of.  The  whole  village 
of  Teshtigo,  Wisconsin,  was  consumed,  and  many  lives  were  lost.  In 
one  family  of  twenty  persons  all  but  one  perished.  All  agree  that 
it  was  no  ordinary  condition  of  the  atmosphere  which  caused  such 
a  reign  of  fire  in  the  northwest.  In  Peshtigo  the  very  sky  seemed 
to  shower  flaming  sparks.  One  man  related  that  he  went  out  after 
he  heard  the  cry  of  fire,  to  wet  the  roof  of  his  house,  when  suddenly, 
with  a  rush  and  roar  like  that  of  many  waters,  a  cloud  of  mid¬ 
night  blackness  about  twenty  feet  in  length  passed  over  him,  and 
when  a  few  yards  away  exploded  like  a  shell,  and  then  it  seemed  as 
if  the  whole  air  was  aflame.  The  affrighted  inmates  of  the  house 
rushed  for  the  river,  escaping  only  with  their  lives.  In  this  one 
little  village  three  hundred  and  twenty  people  are  reported  to  have 
lost  their  lives.  At  the  same  time  vast  forest  fires  raged  all  over 
the  northwest  —  in  Michigan  especially  —  and  the  losses  in  lumber 
could  not  be  estimated. 


CHAPTER  LXIII. 

LATEST  EVENTS. 

Decoration  Day.  —  The  Alabama  Claims,  and  their  Arbitration.  —  Election  of  Grant  and 
Wilson.  —  Death  of  Horace  Greeley.  —  Great  Fire  in  Boston.  —  The  Modoc  War.  —  Hang¬ 
ing  of  Captain  Jack.  —  The  Capture  of  the  Virginius.  —  Shooting  of  American  Citizens. — 
Death  of  Charles  Sumner.  —  Louisiana  Troubles.  —  Celebration  of  Battles  of  Lexington  and 
Bunker  Hill.  —  The  National  Centennial. 


The  spring  of  the  year  1872  should  be  held  important  in  our 
memories,  from  the  fact  that  on  a  balmy  May  day,  when  Congress 
assembled,  every  seat  in  its  legislative  halls  was  filled  by  represent¬ 
atives  from  all  the  reunited  States.  For  the  first  time  since  1861, 
when  the  South  Carolinian  representatives  withdrew  angrily  from 
their  seats,  the  whole  country  again  sat  together  in  unison.  The 


598 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


31st  of  May,  called  Decoration  Day,  has  been  set  apart  as  a  sacred 
holiday,  on  which  we  place  flowers  on  the  graves  of  the  soldiers  who 
died  on  the  battle-fields  of  the  rebellion.  Let  us  hope  that  on  this 
Decoration  Day  of  1872,  when  flowers  were  placed  on  Northern  and 
Southern  graves  alike,  the  last  bitterness  between  the  two  sections 
was  put  away  and  forgotten  by  all  noble  minds. 

At  least  one  important  quarrel  was  peacefully  made  up  in  this 
year  of  grace  1872.  One  of  our  chief  causes  of  grievance  during 
our  great  war  had  been  against  England,  for  the  harm  she  had  done 
in  building  and  equipping  ships  for  the  help  and  service  of  the 
rebels.  As  I  have  already  told  you  in  the  account  of  the  battle 
between  the  Alabama  and  the  Kearsarge ,  many  ships  had  set  out 
from  British  ports,  built,  armed,  and  furnished  forth  by  British  mer¬ 
chants,  and  manned  for  the  most  part  by  British  sailors,  which  went 
into  the  seas  to  waylay  and  capture  American  vessels.  The  Shen¬ 
andoah ,  the  Florida ,  and  the  Sumter  were  all  ships  of  this  sort, 
and  each  had  done  a  great  deal  of  mischief.  It  was  said  that  ninety- 
five  American  vessels  could  be  enumerated,  and  ten  millions  of  prop¬ 
erty  could  be  proved  to  have  been  destroyed  by  these  privateers 
from  England.  So  when  the  great  war  was  fairly  off  the  hands  of 
the  country,  it  was  resolved  that  England  must  be  brought  to  an 
account  for  her  active  part  in  all  this  wrong-doing.  Accordingly, 
the  United  States  demanded  indemnity  for  all  she  had  suffered 
from  British  vessels  employed  against  her  navy  and  merchant  ships. 
And  as  the  Alabama  had  been  the  most  famous  of  all  these  vessels, 
and  was  known  beyond  denial  to  have  been  built  in  Liverpool,  the 
question  in  dispute  began  to  be  known  as  the  “  Alabama  Claims .” 

Naturally,  England  did  not  want  to  acknowledge  these  claims, 
and  at  first  stoutly  denied  any  right  of  our  government  to  make 
them.  Mr.  Charles  Sumner  made  a  powerful  speech,  showing  the 
right  of  the  United  States  to  urge  her  claim  to  reparation,  and 
that  all  the  laws  between  nations  would  bear  her  out  in  demanding 
it.  The  speech  made  a  good  deal  of  bitter  feeling  in  England, 
while  it  was  loudly  praised  in  America,  and  it  seemed  at  one  time 
almost  as  if  the  two  countries  must  go  to  war  and  decide  the  matter 
by  force  of  arms.  Fortunately,  a  very  much  better  way  of  settling 
the  matter  was  hit  upon.  England  said  there  were  a  number  of 
questions  which  she  should  like  to  settle  with  America.  The  rights 
of  the  two  nations  in  the  Canada  fisheries  were  not  quite  clear; 
there  was  some  dispute  about  the  American  navigation  of  the  St. 


THE  ALABAMA  CLAIMS. 


599 


Lawrence  ;  the  trade  between  the  United  States  and  Canada  was 
in  a  rather  unsettled  state ;  the  boundaries  of  the  British  posses¬ 
sions  in  America  were  not  absolutely  fixed,  and  in  consideration  of 
all  these  (in  addition  to  the  special  grievance  of  America  about  these 
Alabama  claims),  it  was  proposed  that  each  country  should  appoint 
a  certain  number  of  respectable  and  honest  gentlemen  who  should 
debate  the  points  at  issue,  and  come  to  a  peaceful  settlement. 
After  some  argument  on  both  sides,  this  was  agreed  upon  ;  and  five 
Englishmen  and  five  Americans  were  chosen,  who  formed  what  was 
called  a  “  Joint  High  Commission ,”  which  met  at  Washington,  Feb¬ 
ruary,  1871. 

The  English  commissioners  were  very  polite  to  the  American 
commissioners,  and  in  a  very  agreeable  and  manly  way  expressed 
their  regret  for  what  had  occurred  in  the  Alabama  affair,  and  all 
other  affairs  of  that  kind.  Yet  with  the  politest  possible  conduct  on 
both  sides,  the  joint  high  commission  could  not  fully  decide  what 
was  to  be  done,  and  therefore  concluded  to  appoint  foreign  arbitra¬ 
tors  of  different  nations  to  end  the  whole  matter.  These  arbitrators 
were  five  in  number,  and  were  chosen,  —  one  by  the  President  of 
the  United  States;  one  by  the  English  Queen;  one  by  the  Emperor 
of  Brazil ;  one  by  the  King  of  Italy  ;  and  the  fifth  and  last  by  the 
President  of  the  Swiss  Republic.  These  were  to  settle  the  Alabama 
claims.  The  other  minor  issues  were  to  be  agreed  upon  by  a  com¬ 
mission  of  three  gentlemen,  and  the  northwest  boundary  was  to  be 
left  to  the  decision  of  the  German  Emperor. 

This  Board  of  Arbitration  met  at  Geneva  in  Switzerland,  and  was 
composed  no  doubt  of  very  wise  and  able,  as  well  as  honorable  men. 
They  were,  Sir  Alexander  Cockburn  of  Great  Britain ;  Charles  Fran¬ 
cis  Adams,  —  who  was  the  lineal  descendant  of  two  of  our  presi¬ 
dents, —  on  the  part  of  the  United  States;  ex-president  Stampfli 
from  Switzerland;  Count  Sclopis  of  Italy;  and  Viscount  D’ Itajuba, 
Brazil.  When  they  had  convened,  able  counsel  on  the  part  of  both 
Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  laid  each  side  of  the  case  before 
them,  and  they  began  their  deliberation.  They  met  first  in  Decem¬ 
ber,  1871,  and  then  for  a  time  separated,  till  on  the  15th  of  June, 
1872,  they  had  a  meeting,  and  it  was  decided  by  four  votes  to  one 
that  the  United  States  should  be  paid  by  England  fifteen  and  a  half 
million  dollars  in  gold,  in  reparation  for  the  losses  suffered  in  the 
war  from  ships  built  in  her  ports.  This  being  adjudged,  the  Amer¬ 
icans  were  satisfied  ;  all  other  subjects  of  dispute  were  easy  to  end  : 


600 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


the  fishery  question,  the  navigation  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  and  all 
minor  matters  were  peaceably  settled,  and  good  feeling  restored. 
And  nobody  would  question  that  this  amicable  settlement  was  not 
incomparably  better  and  wiser  than  going  to  war,  killing  thousands 
of  innocent  victims,  wasting  money  in  gunpowder  and  cannon-balls 
till  arbitration  had  to  be  resorted  to  in  the  end  after  all  the  fight¬ 
ing. 

The  fall  of  1872  witnessed  the  opening  of  the  twenty-second  con¬ 
test  for  the  election  of  president.  There  was  a  portion  of  the  re¬ 
publican  party  which  was  dissatisfied  with  Grant’s  management  of 
affairs,  and  formed  a  new  organization  called  the  “  Liberal  Republi¬ 
can."  Delegates  to  represent  this  party  met  in  Cincinnati  and  nom¬ 
inated  Horace  Greeley  for  president.  Mr.  Greeley  yon  have  heard 
of  in  these  pages  as  a  journalist,  the  life-long  editor  of  the  “  New 
York  Tribune,”  one  of  the  most  influential  and  respectable  newspa¬ 
pers  of  the  country. 

The  Republicans  wished  to  see  General  Grant  once  more  their 
president,  and  therefore  nominated  him,  with  the  Hon.  Henry  Wil¬ 
son  as  vice-president.  Mr.  Wilson  was  a  native  of  New  Hampshire  ; 
a  man  who  had  hewn  out  his  path  to  fortune,  and  at  the  time  of  his 
nomination  for  vice-president,  had  been  many  years  in  public  life. 
The  contest  ended  in  the  election  of  Grant  and  Wilson.  Only  a  few 
weeks  after  his  defeat  Mr.  Greeley  died,  worn  out  by  the  hard  work 
and  cares  of  his  political  campaign.  He  had  suffered  all  through 
from  constant  sleeplessness,  under  which  at  last,  his  brain  gave  way, 
and  he  died,  broken  down  and  crushed  by  his  defeat  and  the  abuse 
of  political  opponents,  on  the  29tli  of  November,  1872.  Much  harsh¬ 
ness  of  feeling  had  been  shown  during  the  strife  of  parties  before 
Mr.  Greeley’s  defeat ;  but  as  soon  as  he  was  dead,  the  whole  country 
seemed  bent  on  doing  him  honor,  and  in  New  York  city  especially, 
there  was  heard  only  the  voice  of  mourning  for  his  departure,  and  of 
praise  for  his  spotless  life  as  a  citizen  and  a  politician. 

Only  a  few  weeks  before  the  death  of  Horace  Greeley,  another 
great  American,  one  of  her  greatest  statesmen,  also  passed  away. 
William  H.  Seward  —  his  health  always  shaken  since  the  attempt  on 
his  life  by  the  assassin  Payne,  at  the  time  of  Lincoln’s  murder — had 
left  the  cabinet  in  1869,  after  eight  years  good  and  constant  service 
at  the  head  of  the  state  department,  and  had  sought  rest  in  travel. 
He  went  first  on  a  journey  through  Mexico  and  California,  and  then 
set  out  for  a  tour  around  the  world,  visiting  the  countries  of  Asia, 


THE  MODOC  WAR. 


G01 


and  making  full  and  interesting  notes  of  travel.  On  his  return  lie 
began  to  arrange  these  notes  for  publication,  but  died  in  the  midst 
of  his  work,  on  the  10th  of  October,  1872. 

During  this  fall  of  1872,  the  country  was  startled  by  news  of  an¬ 
other  great  fire,  which  swept  over  the  time-honored  city  of  Boston, 
almost  equaling  in  its  ravages  the  fire  of  the  year  before,  in  Chicago. 
The  flames  broke  out  on  the  10th  of  November,  and  in  a  few  hours 
ate  out  the  heart  of  the  noble  old  city,  devouring  square  after  square 
of  granite  stores  and  warehouses,  besides  many  noble  churches  and 
public  buildings.  Fortunately,  however,  there  were  few  dwellings 
in  the  part  of  the  town  where  the  flames  raged,  and  not  many  peo¬ 
ple  were  left  houseless,  as  in  the  fire  of  Chicago.  The  inhabitants 
were  not  behind  the  people  of  the  West  in  enterprise,  and  even  now, 
although  less  than  three  years  since,  the  blackened  and  ruined  space 
left  by  fire  is  filled  again  by  handsome  blocks  of  business  houses. 

I  could  wish  that  we  were  done  with  tales  of  Indian  warfare,  and 
that  the  closing  record  of  our  nation’s  life  might  not  be  stained  by 
any  further  record  of  bloodshed.  But  one  more  outbreak  among  the 
Modocs  in  Oregon,  a  new  tribe  whom  you  have  not  previously 
heard  of,  remains  to  be  chronicled.  These  Modocs  had  made  some 
years  since  a  treaty  with  the  government,  in  which  they  promised  to 
remove  upon  some  lands  marked  out  for  them  in  Oregon,  called  the 
Klamath  reservation.  A  part  of  the  tribe  did  go  thither,  but  it  is 
said  that  those  who  went  found  it  difficult  to  live  there  ;  part  of  the 
tract  was  occupied  by  a  hostile  tribe,  who  constantly  harassed  them  ; 
they  were  cheated  out  of  their  provisions  by  the  Indian  agent  who 
was  to  supply  them,  and  they  had  suffered  some  wrongs  from  the 
soldiery,  which  they  had  never  forgotten.  How  much  of  this  state¬ 
ment —  which  was  made  in  palliation  of  the  obstinacy  of  those  who 
refused  to  remove  —  can  be  believed,  it  is  difficult  to  tell,  as  in  all  cases 
it  is  next  to  impossible  to  decide  where  justice  lies,  in  the  quarrel  be¬ 
tween  the  white  man  and  the  Indian.  The  most  certain  fact  is,  that 
in  the  fall  of  1872,  a  small  party  of  Modocs  —  not  more  than  two 
hundred  in  all  —  were  reported  as  being  on  the  war-path  in  Oregon. 
These,  led  by  some  courageous  chiefs,  known  as  Captain  Jack,  Scar¬ 
faced  Charley,  Black  Jim,  and  Schonchin,  were  murdering  and  rob¬ 
bing  the  settlers,  and  spreading  consternation  wherever  they  went. 
They  were  ordered  to  go  at  once  to  their  allotted  lands  on  the  Kla¬ 
math  reservation,  but  defiantly  refused.  A  party  of  soldiers  under 
Captain  Jackson,  was  sent  to  force  them  to  go.  They  met  the  sav- 


602 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


ages  and  a  fight  ensued,  in  which  several  Indians  and  three  or  four 
soldiers  were  killed.  After  this  fight,  the  savages  retreated  to  the 
California  border,  to  what  are  known  as  the  lava-beds,  and  pre¬ 
pared  to  hold  out  a  siege  against  their  enemies.  These  lava-beds 
were  fields  covered  with  a  honey-combed  surface  of  volcanic  rock, 
full  of  crevices,  caves,  and  under-ground  windings,  in  which  a  hand¬ 
ful  of  Indians  could  hold  out  against  thousands  of  foes.  Concealed 
among  the  jagged  rocks,  a  savage  from  his  lurking  place  could  shoot 
down  the  soldiers  as  they  approached,  and  then  slipping  into  a  nar¬ 
row  crevice  could  seek  some  winding  passage  under  the  lava  and  re¬ 
appear  again  on  the  surface  far  away  from  his  foe.  The  country 
was  constantly  startled  by  accounts  of  a  sudden  sally  of  Modocs, 
in  which  the  soldiers  were  killed,  and  the  Indians  had  quickly  re¬ 
treated  to  the  lava  beds,  bearing  the  scalps  of  the  slain. 

General  Canby,  who  had  been  in  Mississippi  during  the  last  of 
the  war,  was  in  Oregon  lending  all  his  endeavors  to  make  peace  with 

the  Modocs.  In  this  he  was  as¬ 
sisted  by  some  of  the  peace  com¬ 
mission,  and  Canby  with  these 
men,  forming  together  representa¬ 
tives  both  of  war  and  peace,  agreed 
on  a  day  in  April,  1873,  to  meet 
the  Indian  chief,  Captain  Jack,  and 
some  of  his  party,  at  a  place  they 
named  outside  the  lines  of  Canby’s 
military  post.  General  Canby,  and 
Mr.  Thomas,  Mr.  Meacham,  and 
Mr.  Dyer,  the  three  peace  com¬ 
missioners,  guided  by  a  friendly 
Indian  and  squaw,  went  unat¬ 
tended  to  the  place  proposed.  A 
signal  officer  watched  them  from  a,  distance,  and  in  half  an  hour 
from  the  time  of  meeting,  the  cry  was  raised  that  the  peace  com¬ 
missioners  were  slain.  The  troops  hastened  to  the  place,  meeting 
Mr.  Dyer  and  the  two  Indians  running  for  dear  life.  Canby, 
Thomas,  and  Meacham  were  shot  while  in  peaceful  debate,  and  their 
bodies  were  found  stripped  of  their  clothing  lying  dead  at  the  meet¬ 
ing  place.  The  Indians  had  already  fled  to  the  lava-beds,  and  it 
was  in  vain  for  the  troops  to  attempt  to  follow. 

Two  weeks  later  a  company  of  soldiers  under  Evan  P.  fhomaa 


Major-general  Canby. 


CAPTURE  OF  CAPTAIN  JACK. 


603 


went  in  the  direction  of  these  savage  strong-holds  with  a  party  of 
friendly  Indian  allies.  They  went  to  the  vicinity  of  the  lava-beds 
but  could  see  no  signs  of  Indians.  As  soon,  however,  as  they  had 
ventured  fairly  in  among  the  rocks,  fire  opened  on  them  on  all  sides 
from  unseen  foes.  The  Indians  had  plenty  of  guns,  some  of  them 
having  six  or  seven  loaded  rifles  lying  beside  them,  which  they 
would  discharge  one  after  the  other.  Thomas,  the  leader,  was 
killed,  with  twenty-three  soldiers  and  several  officers.  When  some 
of  these  bodies  were  recovered  they  were  so  mutilated  as  not  to  be 
recognized.  Through  the  spring  this  war  went  on,  till  it  seemed 
as  if  a  handful  of  savages  could  keep  at  bay  the  whole  United 
States  army,  so  much  advantage  did  the  position  in  the  lava  beds 
give  to  the  Indians.  But  in  time  the  superiority  of  numbers  must 
tell.  Late  in  May  a  party  of  Captain  Jack’s  band  were  captured, 
among  them  the  murderer  of  Thomas.  At  the  time  of  this  capture 
Captain  Jack  was  seen  not  far  distant,  and  was  urged  by  some  of 
the  squaws  of  his  tribe  to  give  himself  up.  He  refused  and  stole 
away  in  the  night,  escaping  capture  for  that  time.  On  the  1st  of 
June  a  scouting  party  of  soldiers  led  by  some  Indian  guides  came 
upon  a  trail  which  they  said  was  Captain  Jack’s.  They  were 
preparing  to  follow  the  track,  when  a  Modoc  appeared  bearing  a 
white  flag.  He  said  that  Jack  was  ready  to  surrender.  Three 
scouts  were  sent  to  meet  him.  The  redoubtable  foe  came  forward 
slowly,  looked  about  him,  and  held  out  his  hands  to  his  captors. 
Two  Indian  braves,  five  squaws,  and  seven  children  also  came  forth 
and  surrendered  with  him,  and  with  this  remnant  of  an  army  which 
had  held  out  through  so  long  a  seige,  the  exultant  troops  of  the 
United  States  went  yelling  back  to  their  camp  in  triumph.  Jack  re¬ 
mained  silent  and  sullen.  He  and  his  warriors  were  ironed,  and  then 
consultation  was  held  what  was  to  be  done  with  these  “  prisoners  of 
war.”  They  were  finally  tried  by  a  military  court  and  sentenced 
to  be  hanged,  and  on  the  31st  of  October,  1878,  four  of  the  chiefs, 
Captain  Jack,  Boston  Charlie,  Black  Jim,  and  Schonchin  were  exe¬ 
cuted  on  the  gallows  at  Fort  Klamath  in  the  presence  of  the  sol¬ 
diers  and  a  few  wandering  Indians  who  looked  on  at  the  execution. 
The  hanging  of  Captain  Jack  put  an  end  to  the  Modoc  war,  and  re¬ 
stored  quiet  to  the  State. 

Already,  on  March  4,  1873,  Grant  and  Wilson  had  taken  their 
seats  as  president  and  vice-president,  and  great  excitement  had 
been  aroused  in  the  nation,  by  the  fact  that  the  Congress  which 


604 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


met  on  the  occasion  of  the  new  inauguration  had  passed  a  bill  in¬ 
creasing  salaries  of  the  officials,  raising  the  salary  of  the  president 
from  $25,000  per  year  to  $50,000,  and  making  large  increase  in  the 
pay  of  other  officers  of  government.  This  caused  much  discon¬ 
tent  and  criticism  in  a  large  party,  who  argued  that  the  country 
was  already  feeling  the  pressure  of  the  late  war,  and  ought  to  re¬ 
trench  its  expenses  instead  of  increasing  them. 

In  1S69,  a  rebellion  had  begun  in  the  island  of  Cuba,  still  a 
colony  of  Spain,  in  which  the  Cubans  endeavored  to  gain  their 
independence.  There  was  among  many  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States  a  strong  feeling  of  sympathy  with  Cuba,  and  as  there  were 
Cubans  in  this  country  who  sought  to  interest  Americans  in  their 
efforts  for  freedom,  it  was  feared  by  our  government  that  expeditions 
might  be  fitted  out  in  our  ports  to  go  to  the  aid  of  the  insurgents. 
As  this  would  be  contrary  to  the  law  of  nations,  and  any  such  aid 
from  America  would  be  doing  just  such  a  wrong  to  Spain,  as  that 
we  complained  of  from  England  in  the  dispute  about  the  Alabama , 
our  government  was  strict  in  its  efforts  to  prevent  any  such  action. 
One  vessel  preparing  to  sail  was  found  to  be  engaged  to  go  to  the 
aid  of  Cuba,  and  her  departure  was  stayed  and  her  crew  taken  off 
and  disbanded.  In  another  case,  two  American  citizens  who  were 
accidentally  identified  with  a  hostile  expedition  in  Cuba,  were  killed 
by  Spanish  authorities,  but  Spain  promised  instant  reparation,  and 
so  there  was  little  trouble  about  it.  In  the  fall  of  1873,  however, 
quite  an  important  event  occurred  which  came  near  breeding  war 
between  Spain  and  the  United  States. 

On  the  26th  of  September,  a  vessel  named  the  Virginius,  was 
registered  in  the  New  York  Custom  House  as  the  property  of  a  citi¬ 
zen  of  United  States,  and  sailed  on  the  4th  of  October  for  a  port 
in  the  West  Indies.  She  carried  American  papers,  and  in  foreign 
ports  made  claim  to  her  American  nationality,  and  bore  the  Ameri¬ 
can  flag.  On  the  last  day  of  October  while  still  sailing  under  the 
stars  and  stripes,  a  Spanish  ship  captured  the  Virginius ,  accusing 
her  captain  of  hostile  designs  against  Spain  and  declaring  that  the 
purpose  of  the  voyage  was  to  land  men  and  arms  in  Cuba,  in  aid 
of  the  rebellion  against  the  government.  Four  leading  Cubans 
were  found  among  the  passengers,  who  were  known  to  be  in  revolt 
against  Spain.  The  ship  and  all  on  board  were  taken  to  Havana, 
and  on  November  4th  the  Cuban  prisoners  were  shot.  A  few  days 
later  Captain  Fry,  the  American  captain  of  the  Virginius,  thirty  six 


DEATH  OF  CHARLES  SUMNER. 


605 


men  of  his  crew,  and  eighteen  others  who  were  on  board,  were  sum¬ 
marily  shot  without  being  allowed  to  appeal  to  their  government  for 
protection  and  trial.  The  circumstances  of  Fry’s  execution  awak¬ 
ened  great  sympathy.  He  died  a  manly  and  heroic  death,  sending 
a  most  touching  letter  to  his  wife,  whom  he  had  left  behind  him  in 
the  United  States. 

The  excitement  in  the  country  was  very  great,  and  indemnity 
and  full  reparation  was  demanded  from  Spain,  for  the  act  com¬ 
mitted  by  her  officers  in  Cuba.  All  the  power  of  diplomacy  in 
botli  nations  was  exerted  to  preserve  peace.  President  Grant  made 
a  demand  upon  Spain  for  the  restoration  of  the  vessel,  the  return  of 
all  the  survivors  to  this  country,  the  punishment  of  the  offending 
officials  in  Cuba,  and  a  salute  from  the  Spanish  guns  to  the  Vir- 
ginius ,  to  be  fired  when  she  left  their  port.  After  much  correspon¬ 
dence  between  the  two  nations,  the  American  secretary  of  state  ac¬ 
knowledged  that  the  Virginius  was  on  an  errand  hostile  to  Spain, 
and  not  entitled  to  carry  the  flag  of  United  States  at  the  time  of 
her  capture,  and  therefore  the  salute  was  dispensed  with.  The  ves¬ 
sel  was  formally  delivered  up  to  the  navy  of  the  United  States  on 
the  16th  of  December,  1878,  and  prepared  to  return  to  New  York. 
But  the  ill  fated  ship  met  with  foul  weather,  with  difficulty  could 
be  kept  afloat;  and  finally  sank  off  Cape  Fear.  The  prisoners  who 
had  survived  the  slaughter  were  also  returned,  and  reached  New 
York  in  safety.  Thus  a  cloud  which  at  one  time  seemed  black 
with  war,  passed  over  the  country  without  further  threatening. 

On  the  11  tli  of  March,  1874,  the  sad  news  went  over  the  tele¬ 
graph  wires  that  Charles  Sumner  was  dead.  Sumner,  whose  voice 
had  never  been  heard  but  in  the  cause  of  justice,  and  who  had  for 
many  years  held  a  seat  in  the  councils  of  the  land,  was  gone  to  his 
final  rest.  His  last  labors  had  been  to  restore  peace  and  good  feel¬ 
ing  between  the  two  parts  of  the  country  which  had  been  so  long 
at  variance  ;  and  up  to  his  death  he  had  also  worked  incessantly  for 
the  passage  of  a  bill  which  should  give  civil  rights  to  the  African 
race,  and  abolish  all  distinctions  which  arose  from  the  system  of 
caste  which  slavery  had  founded.  It  forbade  making  any  man  an 
outcast  on  account  of  his  color  or  his  race,  and  gave  equal  privilege 
to  all  men  in  all  public  places,  and  in  traveling,  or  at  hotels,  giving 
the  black  man  as  well  as  the  white,  a  right  to  all  the  comforts  for 
which  he  was  able  and  willing  to  pay.  In  the  midst  of  these  hu¬ 
mane  labors,  he  died.  His  last  words  were  in  entreaty  to  a  friend  to 


606 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


“take  care  of  liis  Civil  Rights’  Bill,”  and  with  this  request  on  his 
lips,  one  of  the  noblest  and  purest  of  American  statesmen  breathed 
his  last  breath. 

djlie  struggle  between  the  new  and  the  old  order  of  things  was 
not  quite  over  in  the  South,  and  accounts  of  troubles  in  Louisiana 
disturbed  all  lovers  of  peace  and  quiet  during  the  year  1874.  Two 
governors,  elected  by  opposite  parties,  claimed  their  rights  to  the 
office  ;  riots  were  on  foot  and  blood  was  shed  in  the  contest.  The 
president  was  obliged  to  interfere,  and  Congress  at  one  time  pro¬ 
posed  to  put  Louisiana  again  under  military  rule,  and  deprive  her 
of  her  rights  as  a  State,  till  order  was  brought  back.  General  Sher¬ 
idan,  who  was  sent  to  aid  in  restoring  harmony,  reported,  that  since 
the  war,  3,500  black  men  had  been  massacred  there,  and  that  many 
frightful  murders  in  cold  blood  had  been  committed  by  bands  of 
men  who  were  known  as  ivhite  leaguers.  Finally,  Congress  sent  to 
the  state  a  commission,  to  report  on  the  condition  of  affairs,  and  at 
this  time  order  seems  to  be  entirely  restored. 

The  beginning  of  1875,  the  anniversary  year  of  the  Revolution¬ 
ary  War,  marked  so  great  an  era  in  American  history,  that  all  Amer¬ 
icans  welcomed  it  with  a  feeling  of  enthusiasm,  and  a  reawakening 
of  patriotism,  which  was  perhaps  made  stronger  by  the  dangers 
through  which  the  country  had  passed  only  a  few  years  before. 
Great  preparations  were  made  to  celebrate  the  most  interesting 
days  of  the  year.  In  Massachusetts  the  battle  of  Lexington  was 
celebrated  on  the  19tli  of  April,  both  at  Lexington  and  at  Concord. 
Crowds  of  people  flocked  to  these  towns,  patriotic  speeches  were 
made,  and  a  noble  oration  delivered  in  both  towns,  on  this  memo¬ 
rable  day.  Two  months  later,  on  the  17th  of  June,  when  the  anni¬ 
versary  of  Bunker  Hill’s  Battle  was  kept  in  Charlestown,  the  patri¬ 
otic  excitement  still  ran  high,  and  the  streets  of  Boston  were  filled 
with  happy  crowds,  and  made  gay  with  festive  processions,  in  which 
figured  such  notable  men  as  General  Sherman  and  General  Burn¬ 
side,  and  others  of  the  army,  while  a  regiment  from  Maryland, 
which  had  only  a  few  years  before  been  in  hostile  array  against  the 
men  of  Charlestown,  now  took  peaceful  part  in  the  national  holiday. 

On  the  last  day  of  July  1875,  Andrew  Johnson,  who  had  been 
elected  to  the  United  States  Senate  by  the  Legislature  of  Tennesee, 
was  attacked  by  paralysis  and  died  after  a  brief  illness.  He  was 
one  of  the  remarkable  men  of  his  country,  a  man  without  culture 
and  most  limited  opportunities  in  early  life,  who  in  spite  of  all 


THE  END.  607 

disadvantages  had  taken  the  most  distinguished  position  in  the 
nation. 

A  few  months  later,  on  the  22d  of  November,  Henry  Wilson, 
whose  career  was  hardly  less  remarkable  than  that  of  Andrew  J ohn- 
son,  also  died  of  a  similar  attack. 

Like  Johnson  he  had  been  born  in 
the  lowest  ranks  of  life,  working 
for  his  daily  bread  from  earliest 
boyhood,  and  climbing  up  all  the 
steps  that  lead  to  fortune,  till  he 
filled  the  highest  offices  of  trust 
and  honor  his  country  could  be¬ 
stow. 

The  celebrations  of  Lexington, 

Concord,  and  Bunker  Hill  grow 
pale  before  the  great  approaching 
Centennial  Exhibition,  which  is  to 
be  held  very  shortly  in  the  city 
of  Philadelphia,  to  commemorate  our  year  of  Independence,  1876. 
Its  hundredth  year  opens  on  a  nation,  peaceful,  rich  in  territory, 
with  material  improvements  spreading  far  and  wide  over  the  land  — 
in  the  iron  rails  of  its  railways  and  the  connecting  wires  of  its  tele¬ 
graphs  —  with  free  schools,  and  every  means  for  spreading  intelli¬ 
gence  among  its  people. 

And  not  alone  in  railroads  which  cut  the  states  and  territories 
right  and  left,  like  the  lines  of  a  spider’s  web  ;  nor  in  telegraphs 
that  spread  their  fine  network  all  over  the  land,  has  the  nation 
shown  its  progress  and  enterprise.  The  invention  of  the  cunning 
Yankee  has  become  a  by-word.  There  are  his  sewing-machines, 
one  of  which  could  do  the  work  of  a  dozen  nimble-fingered  seam¬ 
stresses.  There  are  his  agricultural  machines  for  reaping,  mowing, 
and  sowing,  and  all  sorts  of  out-door  labor,  which  do  the  work  of  an 
army  of  laborers.  His  improvements  in  manufactures,  in  science, 
it  would  take  another  volume  to  tell  all  about  them.  It  is  in  such 
works  as  these  that  the  chief  glory  and  highest  prosperity  of  our 
nation  lies. 

On  the  one  hundredth  anniversary  of  Our  Country’s  life  I  end 
her  story.  I  have  tried  to  show  you  the  steps  by  which  she  grew 
to  her  present  greatness.  I  have  told  you  of  the  two  great  conflicts 
through  which  she  passed  before  she  could  assert  her  right  to  call 


Henry  Wilson. 


608 


STORY  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 


herself  a  great  nation,  ranking  among  the  most  powerful  on  the 
globe.  Let  us  never  forget  what  a  price  she  has  paid  for  her  great¬ 
ness,  and  let  us  aid  to  make  this  such  a  nation  that  every  one  of  us 
may  be  proud  to  say,  I  am  4  Citizen  of  the  American  Re¬ 
public. 


APPENDIX. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  INTERNATIONAL  EXHIBITION  AT 

PHILADELPHIA. 

HE  celebration  of  the  close  of  the  first  century  of  the  Republic  has 


J-  taken  the  form  of  a  great  exhibition  to  which  not  only  all  parts  of  the 
United  States,  but  all  countries  of  the  globe  are  invited  to  send  the  products 
of  their  industry  and  art.  This  exhibition  follows  the  great  exhibitions  of 
London,  Paris,  and  Vienna,  but  in  the  extent  of  ground  occupied  and  the 
magnitude  of  the  plan  surpasses  all  previous  exhibitions. 

The  idea  of  a  centennial  exhibition  was  first  suggested  by  Professor  Camp¬ 
bell  of  Indiana  (now  Secretary  of  the  Commission),  in  a  letter  written  to 
Hon.  Morton  McMichael,  Mayor  of  Philadelphia  in  1866.  This  was  acted 
upon  by  the  city  council  and  Franklin  Institute.  This  suggestion  took  its 
first  practical  shape  in  the  Act  of  Congress  March  3,  1871.  This  act  recited, 
that  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  which  gave  existence  to  the  United 
States  of  America,  was  prepared,  signed,  and  promulgated  in  the  city  of 
Philadelphia ;  and  that  it  behooved  the  people  of  the  United  States  to  cele¬ 
brate  by  appropriate  ceremonies  at  its  birthplace  the  centennial  anniver¬ 
sary  of  this  memorable  and  decisive  event.  It  was  deemed  fitting  by  the 
Congress,  that  the  manner  of  its  celebration  should  be  an  exhibition  of  the 
natural  resources  of  the  country  and  their  development,  and  of  its  progress 
in  those  arts  which  benefit  mankind,  in  comparison  with  those  of  older 
nations.  They  therefore  decreed  that  an  exhibition  of  American  and 
foreign  arts,  products,  and  manufactures  should  be  held  under  the  auspices 
of  the  Government  of  the  United  States,  in  the  city  of  Philadelphia,  in  the 
year  1876.  As  the  act  incorporating  the  Centennial  Commission  made  an 
explicit  proviso  that  no  expense  should  be  incurred  for  which  the  govern¬ 
ment  should  be  held  responsible,  it  became  necessary  to  secure  the  organ¬ 
ization  of  a  financial  body  in  which  proper  powers  should  be  invested.  An 
act  was  therefore  passed  June  1,  1872,  to  enable  provisions  to  be  made  for 
procuring  the  funds  requisite  for  the  preparation  and  conduct  of  the  inter¬ 
national  exhibition  and  memorial  celebration. 


610 


APPENDIX. 


The  said  corporation  was  empowered  to  secure  subscriptions  of  capital 
stock  to  an  amount  not  exceeding  $10,000,000,  to  be  divided  into  shares  of 
$10  each;  and  to  issue  to  the  subscribers  of  said  stock  certificates  therefor 
under  the  corporate  seal  of  said  corporation  ;  the  certificates  to  bear  the 
signature  of  the  president  and  treasurer,  and  be  transferable  under  such 
rules  and  regulations  as  might  be  made  for  the  purpose.  And  it  was  made 
lawful  for  any  municipal  or  other  corporate  body,  existing  by  or  under  the 
laws  of  the  United  States,  to  subscribe  and  pay  for  shares  of  said  capital 
stock  ;  and  all  holders  of  said  stock  were  by  the  act  made  associates  in  said 
corporation,  and  as  such  entitled  to  one  vote  on  each  share. 

The  exhibition  buildings  are  located  in  Fairmount  Park,  which  adjoins 
the  built-up  portions  of  Philadelphia  on  the  northwestern  border.  This  is 
a  beautiful  park  of  2,740  acres,  upon  which  the  city  has  already  spent  over 
$6,000,000.  Through  it  runs  the  Schuylkill  River  bordered  by  high  banks 
and  ravines,  and  its  great  natural  beauty  enhanced  by  art.  The  buildings 
are  located  on  some  of  the  most  beautiful  spots  on  the  banks  of  this  river  ; 
groves  of  stately  trees  surrounding  them,  splendid  views  of  river  and  land¬ 
scape  being  afforded.  These  buildings  stand  from  one  hundred  and  twelve 
to  one  hundred  and  twenty  feet  above  the  highest  tide-water  level  in  the 
Delaware  River,  and  fully  that  height  above  the  Schuylkill.  Philadelphia 
has  a  population  of  800,000  inhabitants,  containing  183,000  dwelling-houses, 
a  large  proportion  of  which  are  owned  by  their  occupants  ;  and  this  number 
is  being  increased  at  the  rate  of  6,000  a  year.  Girard  Avenue,  one  of  the 
chief  streets  of  Philadelphia,  leads  directly  from  the  heart  of  the  city  to,  the 
eastern  entrance  of  the  Main  Exhibition  Building.  This  is  a  broad  highway 
100  feet  in  width,  crossing  the  Schuylkill  River  upon  a  magnificent  iron 
bridge,  and  which  was  erected  at  a  cost  of  $1,500,000,  expressly  to  furnish 
good  facilities  of  access  to  the  exhibition  grounds.  This  avenue  passes 
through  the  park  in  a  westerly  direction,  and  is  a  very  fine  drive.  On  the 
left,  and  fronting  the  Schuylkill,  are  the  Zoological  Gardens,  occupying 
about  35  acres  ;  which  long  formed  an  elegant  rural  residence,  being  known 
as  “  Solitude,”  and  rendered  historical  as  the  abode  of  John  Penn  while  he 
was  Governor  of  Pennsylvania.  The  society  who  have  this  in  charge  have 
already  made  a  valuable  collection  of  tropical  and  other  animals,  to  which 
constant  additions  are  being  made.  Bordering  this  avenue  on  the  right  are 
the  exhibition  grounds.  These  cover  about  236  acres,  which  are  inclosed 
for  the  buildings  ;  in  addition  to  which  there  are  other  inclosures  for  the 
display  of  horses  and  cattle. 

The  buildings  for  the  exhibition  are  — 

The  Main  Exhibition  Building. 

Machinery  Building. 

Memorial  Hall  or  Art  Gallery. 


General  View  of  the  Principal  Buildings. 


•ial  Hall  or  Art  Gallery. 


612 


APPENDIX. 


Agricultural  Hall. 

Horticultural  Hall. 

But  besides  these  great  buildings  there  are  a  number  of  special  buildings 
erected  for  the  convenience  of  the  several  commissions,  or  for  the  better 
display  of  separate  industries,  so  that  the  whole  number  of  buildings  in  the 
inclosure  devoted  to  purposes  of  the  exhibition  is  not  far  from  two  hundred 
and  fifty. 

There  are  some  seven  miles  of  roads  and  walks.  The  West  End  narrow- 
gauge  Railway  makes  a  circuit  of  the  grounds.  There  is. a  station  at  each 
of  the  buildings  for  the  accommodation  of  visitors. 

THE  MAIN  BUILDING. 

This  is  a  parallelogram  running  east  and  west,  1,880  feet  long,  and  north 
and  south  464  feet  wide.  The  larger  portion  is  one  story  high,  the  interior 
height  being  70  feet,  and  the  cornice  on  the  outside  48  feet  from  the 
ground.  At  the  centre  of  the  longer  sides  are  projections  416  feet  in 
length,  and  on  the  ends  of  the  building  projections  216  feet  in  length.  In 
these,  which  are  in  the  centre  of  the  four  sides,  are  located  the  main  en¬ 
trances,  which  are  provided  with  arcades  upon  the  ground  floor,  and  central 
facades  90  feet  high.  The  east  entrance  will  form  the  principal  approach 
for  carriages,  visitors  alighting  at  the  doors  of  the  building  under  cover  of 
the  arcade.  The  south  entrance  will  be  the  principal  approach  from  rail¬ 
way  cars.  The  west  entrance  opens  upon  the  main  passage-way  to  two 
principal  buildings,  the  Machinery  and  Agricultural  Halls,  and  the  north 
entrance  to  Memorial  Hall  (Art  Gallery).  Towers  75  feet  in  height  rise 
at  each  corner  of  the  building.  The  main  building  gives  936,008  square 
feet  of  surface,  or  nearly  214  acres.  Its  ground  plan  shows  a  central 
avenue  120  feet  in  width,  and  1,832  feet  in  length,  which  is  the  longest 
avenue  of  that  width  ever  introduced  into  an  exhibition  building. 

The  foundations  consist  of  piers  of  masonry,  the  superstructure  being 
composed  of  wrought-iron  columns  placed  24  feet  apart,  which  support 
wrought-iron  roof-trusses.  There  are  672  of  these  columns  in  the  entire 
structure,  the  shortest  being  23  feet  and  the  longest  125  feet  long.  Their 
aggregate  weight  is  2,200,000  lbs.  The  roof-trusses  and  girders  weigh 
5,000,000  lbs.  Turrets  surmount  the  building  at  all  the  corners  and  angles ; 
and  the  national  standard,  with  appropriate  emblems,  is  placed  over  each  of 
the  main  entrances.  There  are  numerous  side-entrances,  each  being  sur¬ 
mounted  with  a  trophy  showing  the  national  colors  of  the  country  occupy¬ 
ing  that  portion  of  the  building.  Offices  for  the  foreign  commissions  are 
placed  along  the  sides  of  the  building,  in  close  proximity  to  the  products 
exhibited.  Offices  for  the  administration  are  at  the  ends. 


Main  Exhibition  Building. 


614 


APPENDIX. 


ARRANGEMENT  OF  PRODUCTS. 

The  arrangement  of  products  in  the  main  building  is  by  eight  depart¬ 
ments,  placed  in  parallel  zones  lengthwise  the  buildings,  the  zones  being  of 
different  width  according  to  the  bulk  of  the  products  exhibited  in  the  par¬ 
ticular  department.  The  countries  and  states  exhibiting  are  arranged  in 
parallel  zones  crosswise  the  building,  these  zones  also  being  of  different 
widths  according  to  the  amount  of  space  required  for  the  exhibits  of  each 
country.  Between  each  department  and  each  country  are  passage-ways  dis¬ 
tinctly  marking  the  limit  of  each.  By  this  means  the  visitor  who  desires  to 
compare  products  of  the  same  kind  from  different  parts  of  the  world  may 
do  so  by  passing  through  the  building  lengthwise,  keeping  iu  the  zone 
devoted  to  the  particular  department ;  or  if  he  desires  to  examine  the  prod¬ 
ucts  exhibited  by  any  particular  country  or  state  he  may  do  so  by  passing 
through  the  building  crosswise,  in  the  zone  devoted  to  the  country  or  state 
he  is  studying. 

THE  ART  GALLERY. 

The  most  imposing  and  ornate  of  all  the  structures  is  Memorial  Hall, 
built,  at  a  cost  of  $1,500,000,  by  the  State  of  Pennsylvania  and  City  of 
Philadelphia.  This  is  to  be  used  during  the  Exhibition  as  an  Art  Gallery, 
after  which  it  is  designed  to  make  it  the  receptacle  of  an  industrial  and  art 
collection  similar  to  the  famous  South  Kensington  Museum  at  Loudon.  It 
stands  on  a  line  parallel  with,  and  a  short  distance  northward  of,  the  Main 
Building,  and  is  in  a  commanding  position,  looking  southward  across  the 
Schuylkill  over  Philadelphia.  It  stands  upon  a  terrace  122  feet  above  the 
level  of  the  Schuylkill.  Being  designed  for  an  absolutely  fireproof  struct¬ 
ure,  nothing  combustible  has  been  used.  The  design  is  modern  Renais¬ 
sance.  It  covers  an  acre  and  a  half,  and  is  365  feet  long,  210  feet  wide, 
and  59  feet  high,  over  a  spacious  basement  12  feet  high.  A  dome,  rising 
150  feet  above  the  ground,  surmounts  the  centre,  capped  by  a  colossal  ball, 
from  which  rises  the  figure  of  Columbia.  The  main  front  of  this  building 
looks  southward,  displaying  a  main  entrance  in  the  centre,  consisting  of 
three  enormous  arched  door- ways,  a  pavilion  on  each  end,  and  two  arcades 
connecting  the  pavilions  with  the  centre.  The  entrance  is  70  feet  wide,  to 
which  there  is  a  rise  of  13  steps.  Each  of  the  huge  door- ways  is  40  feet 
high  and  15  feet  wide,  opening  into  a  hall.  Between  the  arches  of  the 
door-ways  are  clusters  of  columns  terminating  in  emblematic  designs  illus¬ 
trative  of  science  and  art.  The  doors  are  of  iron,  relieved  by  bronze  panels, 
displaying  the  coats  of  arms  of  all  the  States  and  Territories.  The  United 
States  coat  of  arms  is  in  the  centre  of  the  main  frieze.  The  dome  is  of 
glass  and  iron,  of  unique  design.  While  Columbia  rises  at  the  top,  a  colos¬ 
sal  figure  stands  at  each  corner  of  the  base  of  the  dome,  typifying  the  four 


Memorial  Hall  or  Art  Gallery, 


616 


APPENDIX. 


quarters  of  the  globe.  In  each  pavilion  there  is  a  large  window  12^  feet  by 
34  feet.  There  are  garden-plots  each  90  feet  by  36  feet,  ornamented  in  the 
centre  with  fountains,  and  intended  to  display  statuary.  The  arcades  are 
highly  ornamented,  and  the  balustrades  of  them  and  of  the  approaching 
stair-ways  are  also  designed  for  statuary.  The  grand  balcony  is  a  prom¬ 
enade  275  feet  long  and  45  feet  wide,  elevated  40  feet  above  the  ground, 
and  overlooking  to  the  northward  the  beautiful  grounds  of  the  Park.  On 
each  front  of  the  buildings  the  entrances  open  into  halls  82  feet  long,  GO  feet 
wide,  and  53  feet  high,  decorated  in  modern  Renaissance.  These,  in  turn, 
open  into  the  centre  hall,  83  feet  square,  the  ceiling  rising  over  it  80  feet  in 
height.  From  the  east  and  west  sides  of  this  centre  hall  extend  the  gal¬ 
leries,  each  98  feet  long,  48  feet  wide,  and  35  feet  high.  These  galleries 
with  the  centre  hall  form  a  grand  hall  287  feet  long  and  83  feet  wide,  capa¬ 
ble  of  comfortably  accommodating  8,000  persons.  This  is  nearly  twice  the 
dimensions  of  the  largest  hall  in  the  United  States.  This  tine  building 
gives  75,000  square  feet  of  wall  space  for  paintings,  and  20,000  square  feet 
of  floor  space  for  statues,  etc.  The  skylights  tlwoughout  are  double,  the 
upper  being  of  clear  glass  and  the  under  of  ground  glass. 

MACHINERY  BUILDING. 

This  structure  is  located  about  550  feet  west  of  the  Main  Exhibition 
Building ;  and,  as  its  north  front  stands  upon  the  same  line,  it  is  practically 
a  continuation  of  that  edifice,  the  two  together  presenting  a  frontage  of 
3,824  feet,  from  their  eastern  to  their  western  ends,  upon  the  principal 
avenue  within  the  grounds.  This  building  consists  of  a  main  hall  1,402 
feet  long,  and  360  feet  widb,  with  an  annex  on  the  southern  side  208  feet 
by  210  feet.  The  entire  area  covered  is  558,440  square  feet,  or  nearly 
thirteen  acres  ;  and  the  floor  space  afforded  is  about  fourteen  acres.  The 
chief  portion  of  the  building  is  one  story  in  height,  the  main  cornice  upon 
the  outside  being  40  feet  from  the  ground,  and  the  interior  height  to  the  top 
of  the  ventilators  in  the  avenue  70  feet,  and  in  the  aisles  40  feet.  To  break 
the  long  lines  of  the  exterior,  projections  have  been  introduced  upon  the 
four  sides  ;  and  the  main  entrances  are  finished  with  fagades  extending  to 
78  feet  in  height.  The  eastern  entrance  will  be  the  principal  approach  from 
railways,  and  from  the  Main  Exhibition  Building.  Along  the  southern  side 
are  placed  the  boiler-houses,  and  such  other  buildings  for  special  kinds  of 
machinery  as  may  be  required.  The  plan  of  the  Machinery  Building  shows 
two  main  avenues  90  feet  wide,  with  a  central  aisle  between,  and  an  aisle  on 
either  side,  these  being  60  feet  in  width.  These  avenues  and  aisles  together 
have  360  feet  width,  and  each  of  them  is  1,360  feet  long. 

This  Machinery  Building  has  very  superior  facilities  for  shafting,  and 
double  lines  are  introduced  into  each  avenue  and  aisle  at  a  height  of  about 

o 


Machinery  Hall 


618 


APPENDIX. 


20  feet.  A  Corliss  steam-engine  of  1,400  horse  power  drives  the  main 
shafting.  There  are  also  counter-lines  of  shafting  in  the  aisles,  and  special 
steam-power  is  furnished  where  necessary.  Steam-power  is  furnished  free 
to  exhibitors.  In  the  annex  for  hydraulic  machines  there  is  a  tank  60  feet 
by  160  feet,  with  10  feet  depth  of  water.  It  is  intended  to  exhibit  all  sorts 
of  hydraulic  machinery  in  full  operation  ;  and  at  the  southern  end  of  the 
tank  there  is  a  waterfall  35  feet  high  by  40  feet  wide,  supplied  from  the 
tank  by  the  pumps  on  exhibition. 

THE  AGRICULTURAL  BUILDING. 

This  building  illustrates  a  novel  combination  of  materials,  mainly  wood 
and  glass,  and  consists  of  a  long  nave  crossed  by  three  transepts,  each  being 
composed  of  truss-arches  of  Gothic  form.  The  nave  is  820  feet  long  by 
125  feet  in  width,  with  a  height  of  75  feet  from  the  floor  to  the  point  of  the 
arch.  The  central  transept  is  100  feet  wide,  and  75  feet  high,  and  the  two 
end  transepts  80  feet  wide  and  70  feet  high.  Its  interior  appearance  re¬ 
sembles  that  of  a  great  cathedral  ;  and,  in  looking  from  transept  to  transept, 
the  vista  is  extremely  imposing.  A  portion  of  this  building  is  supplied  with 
steam-power  for  the  use  of  agricultural  machinery.  The  four  courts  in¬ 
closed  by  the  nave  and  transept,  and  also  the  four  spaces  at  the  corners  of 
the  building,  having  the  nave  and  end  transepts  for  two  of  their  sides,  are 
roofed,  and  form  valuable  spaces  for  exhibits.  The  ground  plan  of  the 
building  is  a  parallelogram  540  feet  by  820  feet,  covering  about  10£  acres. 

THE  HORTICULTURAL  BUILDING. 

The  city  of  Philadelphia  made  a  liberal  grant  of  money  to  provide  for 
the  horticultural  department  of  the  Exhibition  an  extremely  ornate  and 
commodious  building,  which  is  designed  to  remain  in  permanence  as  an 
ornament  of  Fairmount  Park.  This  building  is  designed  in  the  Moresque 
style  of  architecture  of  the  twelfth  century,  the  chief  materials  externally 
being  iron  and  glass,  supported  by  fine  marble  and  brickwork.  The  build¬ 
ing  is  383  feet  long,  193  feet  wide,  and  72  feet  high  to  the  top  of  the  lan¬ 
tern.  The  main  floor  is  occupied  by  the  central  conservatory,  230  feet  by 
80  feet,  and  55  feet  high,  surmounted  by  a  lantern  170  feet  long.  20  feet 
wide,  and  14  feet  high.  Running  entirely  around  this  conservatory,  at  a 
height  of  20  feet  from  the  floor,  is  a  gallery  5  feet  wide.  On  the  north  and 
south  sides  of  this  principal  room  are  four  forcing-houses  for  the  propaga¬ 
tion  of  young  plants,  each  of  them  100  feet  by  30  feet,  and  covered  by 
curved  roofs  of  iron  and  glass,  which,  appearing  upon  the  exterior  of  the 
building,  present  a  very  fine  feature.  A  vestibule  30  feet  square  separates 
the  two  forcing-houses  on  each  side  ;  and  there  are  similar  vestibules  at  the 


Agricultural  Hall. 


620 


APPENDIX. 


centre  of  the  east  and  west  ends,  on  either  side  of  which  are  apartments 
for  restaurants,  reception-rooms,  offices,  etc.  The  east  and  west  entrances 


United  States  Government  Building. 


to  the  Horticultural  Building  are  approached  by  flights  of  blue  marble  steps, 
from  terraces  80  feet  by  20  feet,  in  the  centre  of  each  of  which  stands  an 
open  kiosk  20  feet  in  diameter.  Each  entrance  is  beautified  by  ornamental 
tile  and  marble  work  ;  and  the  angles  of  the  main  conservatory  are  to  be 
adorned  with  eight  attractive  fountains.  Extensive  heating  arrangements 
are  provided  in  the  basement,  which  is  of  fireproof  construction. 

Surrounding  this  building  there  are  thirty-five  acres  of  ground,  which 
will  be  devoted  to  horticultural  purposes. 


Horticultural  Hall 


6  22 


APPENDIX. 


The  site  occupied  by  the  Horti cultural  Building  was  formerly  occupied 
by  a  mansion,  which  was  the  residence  of  John  Penn,  the  last  colonial  gov¬ 
ernor  of  Pennsylvania. 

Of  the  other  buildings,  the  most  notable  are  the  Government  Building, 
for  the  exhibition  by  the  various  departments  at  Washington  ;  the  Wo¬ 
man’s  Pavilion,  containing  specimens  of  woman’s  work  in  every  department 
of  industry;  and  the  Jury  Pavilion,  for  the  service  of  the  judges  of  the 
Exhibition. 


The  space  covered  by  the  buildings  erected  for  former  world’s  fairs,  and 
the  cost  of  their  erection,  were  as  follows  :  — 


Space  covered, 

acres. 

Cost. 

London, 1851  . 

.  20 

$1,464,000 

New  York,  1850  . 

•  •  53 

500,000 

Paris,  1855  . 

.  30 

4,000,000 

London, 18G2  . 

2,300,000 

Paris,  1867 . 

.  40} 

4,596,763 

Vienna,  1873  . 

50 

9,850,000 

The  Philadelphia  Exhibition  Buildings 

will  cover  a  much  larger  area. 

The  exact  cost  cannot,  at  this  writing,  be 

stated,  but  the  figures  below  are 

an  approximation  :  — 

Area, 

Probable 

acres. 

cost. 

Main  building  or  Industrial  Hall 

.  21.47 

$1,500,000 

Memorial  Hall . 

1.50 

1,500,000 

Machinery  Hall  ..... 

.  14.00 

600,000 

Horticultural  Hall  .... 

1.50 

253,000 

Agricultural  Hall  ...... 

.  10.15 

250,000 

Totals . 

48.62 

$4,103,000 

Other  structures,  such  as  the  Woman’s  Pavilion,  Government,  leather, 
carriage,  and  photograph  buildings,  an  additional  art  building  and  proposed 
annexes  to  the  machinery  and  agricultural  buildings  will  occupy  at  least 
fourteen  acres,  and  together  with  stock-yards,  improvements,  bridges,  etc., 
will  probably  cost  $2,250,000  more.  So  that  the  total  space  covered  by 
the  principal  Exhibition  Buildings  will  be  more  than  sixty-two  acres, — 
twelve  acres  more  than  the  space  covered  by  the  buildings  of  the  heretofore 
largest  fair,  at  Vienna  ;  and  the  cost  of  the  buildings  will  be  considerably 
less  altogether  than  the  cost  of  the  Vienna  buildings. 

A  writer  in  the  “New  York  World,”  for  February  14,  1876,  before  the 
opening  of  the  Exhibition,  draws  this  glowing  picture  of  what  was  to  be  ex¬ 
pected. 

“  Great  Britain  and  nearly  all  her  colonies,  France  and  hers,  —  in  fact,  all  the  Euro¬ 
pean  nations  but  one, — several  Asiatic  and  African  states,  and  most  of  the  South  Amer¬ 
ican  countries  are  represented  here  by  their  agents,  and  will  contribute  to  the  Exliibi- 


Women’s  Pavilion. 


624 


APPENDIX. 


tion.  To  swell  the  enormous  and  as  we  shall  see  unprecedented  show  will  come  offerings 
of  gold,  and  ivory,  and  gums,  from  torrid  Barbary,  and  furs  and  feathers  from  Norway 
in  the  north.  Egypt,  now  ruled  by  a  great  Khedive,  has  gathered  together  her  relics  of 
a  civilization  forerunning  by  thousands  of  years  the  birth  of  the  Saviour  of  the  modern 
world,  and  sends  them  across  the  Atlantic  in  company  with  specimens  of  products, — 
such  as  tobacco,  sugar-cane,  indigo,  and  cotton,  —  the  culture  whereof  has  long  replaced 
that  of  the  papyrus  in  regions  inundated  by  old  Nile.  In  the  unopened  boxes  which 
have  been  received  from  Cairo  are  said  to  be  transcendent  antiques  excavated  from 
Abousambul,  Alexandria,  and  Memphis.  The  Obelisk  and  the  Pyramids  have  given  up 
parts  of  themselves  for  transportation  hither,  and  several  objects  illustrating  the  remot¬ 
est  Theban  past  will  be  set  down  here  to  touch  the  minds  of  millions  of  people  next 
summer  with  thoughts  of  days  when  Osiris,  Isis,  and  Horus  were  worshiped  in  the 
earliest  recorded  abodes  of  man.  From  the  Netherlands  —  the  ancient  nurse-lands 
of  Erasmus,  Scaliger,  and  Grotius,  of  Rembrandt,  Jan  Steen,  and  Van  der  Heist,  and 
the  modern  home  of  Ary  Scheffer  and  Rotterdam  Schnaaps  — are  on  their  way  speci¬ 
mens  of  diamond-cutting  and  similar  wondrous  arts,  fabrics  of  wool,  cotton,  silk,  and 
paper,  and  canvasses  from  the  choicest  galleries  north  of  the  Pyrenees  and  the  Alps. 
Worried  though  Turkey  just  now  is,  the  ports  of  Constantinople,  Trebi/.ond,  and 
Smyrna  are  full  of  the  tumult  of  preparations  for  shipping  goods  through  the  Mediter¬ 
ranean  and  across  the  Atlantic.  The  odor  of  attar  of  roses  is  upon  the  deep,  and  the 
costumes  of  Sclaves  and  Roumanians,  Albanians.  Armenians,  and  Circassians,  Ivoords 
Gypsies,  Druses,  Arabs,  Tartars,  Syrians  —  all  the  motley  nationalities  of  which  the 
Osmanlis  are  made  up  —  will  blend  their  colors  with  the  approaching  kaleidoscopic 
scene.  Siam  has  appropriated  $100,000  to  bear  the  expenses  of  her  display  of  vases 
and  urns,  fine  cloths  and  glass  wares.  The  Japanese  are  early  in  the  field  with  mate¬ 
rials  for  their  building  on  the  Exhibition  grounds,  and  have  devoted  $600,000  to  make 
their  part  in  the  festival  a  brilliant  success.  To  the  porcelain  articles,  lacquer  work, 
wood  and  ivory  carvings,  and  gorgeous  specimens  of  lithochrome  printing,  which  have 
distinguished  this  singular  people  at  European  and  native  fairs,  they  will  add  on  this  oc¬ 
casion  many  extraordinary  objects  which  have  never  before  quitted  the  shores  of  their 
islands  nor  even  the  seclusion  of  certain  residences  there  of  the  highest  rank.  The  land 
of  the  Shah,  whose  jewels  lately  dazzled  London,  has  also  in  preparation  its  tribute  of 
silks,  shawls,  and  felts,  satins,  sarcanets,  and  somewhat  inferior  brocades  and  velvets.  If 
one  may  trust  the  reports  current  in  the  no  longer  staid  Quaker  City,  the  plateaux  and 
mountain  recesses  of  Persia  are  streaked  with  caravans  ;  the  sites  of  Persepolis,  Shahpur, 
and  Istakhar  are  turned  into  noisy  encampments,  and  the  Straits  of  Armuz  and  the 
Gulf  are  loud  with  the  shouts  of  Tajik  mariners  under  white  sails  that  bend  forward 
over  costly  cargoes  towards  the  western  world.  Even  Tunis  will  render  store  of  precious 
metals,  leather,  senna,  spices,  and  cochineal,  and  web-like  muslins ;  and  the  rising  em¬ 
pire  of  Brazil,  of  whose  growth  and  progress  we  have  taken  too  little  heed,  is  to  fling 
into  this  peaceful  arena  a  full  assortment  of  its  agricultural  products,  manufactures,  and 
arts.  Italy  has  dedicated  many  of  her  most  glorious  paintings  and  groups  of  statuary  to 
the  exhibition  of  the,  arts.  And  for  the  first  time  since  the  days  of  the  Jesuits’  ascendancy 
in  America,  the  walls  of  the  art  galleries  of  Madrid  and  Lisbon  will  loan  a  generous 
portion  of  their  long-secluded  treasures  to  the  gaze  of  eves  heyond  the  Atlantic  sea. 
Belgium,  Denmark,  Sweden,  Peru,  Bolivia,  Hayti,  Venezuela,  Mexico,  Ecuador,  Nica¬ 
ragua,  Liberia,  Guatemala,  and  Salvador,  Honduras,  the  United  States  of  Colombia, 
Hawaii,  the  Argentine  Confederation,  Orange  Free  State  —  these  are  among  the  coun¬ 
tries  which  are  to  be  represented  at  the  biggest  World’s  Fair  that  will  ever  have  been 
held.” 


INDEX 


A. 

Abercrombie  commands  British  army,  168. 

Abolitionists,  measures  of,  414;  arguments, 
416. 

Acadie  granted  to  England,  149 ;  burning  of, 
163. 

Adams,  John,  graduates  at  Harvard,  175; 
made  foreign  minister,  276;  elected  presi¬ 
dent,  294;  death,  348. 

Adams,  Samuel,  patriotism  of,  208. 

Alabama  secedes,  434. 

Alabama ,  sunk  by  the  Kearsargc ,  561. 

Albany  built,  113;  growth  of,  181. 

Algerine  pirates,  trouble  with,  301. 

Algiers  attempts  to  levy  on  United  States, 
302;  war  with,  305,  344. 

Allen,  Ethan,  takes  Ticonderoga,  207 ;  taken 
prisoner,  216. 

Alphonso,  King  of  Portugal,  29. 

American  flag  first  designed,  219. 

Ampudia,  General,  Mexican  officer,  378. 

Anderson,  Major  R.,  defends  Fort  Sumter, 
437 ;  in  Kentucky,  467. 

Andre,  Major  John,  correspondence  with  Ar¬ 
nold,  254;  capture  of,  255;  letter  to  Wash¬ 
ington,  257 ;  execution,  259. 

Andros,  Sir  Edmund,  Governor  of  Massachu¬ 
setts  Colony,  138;  rebellion  against  him, 
140 

Antietam,  battle  of,  506. 

Archdale,  John,  Governor  of  Carolinas,  121. 

Arkansas  leaves  the  Union,  449;  entered  by 
troops,  524. 

Army  of  the  Cumberland,  The,  511. 

Arnold,  Benedict,  enlists  in  revolutionary 
army,  206;  burns  his  ships  on  Lake  Cham¬ 
plain,  225;  expedition  to  Fort  Stanwix, 
236;  marries  Tory  wife,  241;  at  West 
Point,  254;  his  treason,  254;  escape,  256; 
burns  Richmond,  269. 

Atlanta,  Sherman  moves  toward,  565;  taking 
of,  567. 

Austin,  Stephen,  colonist  in  Texas,  373. 

Aztecs,  66. 


B. 

Bacon,  Nathaniel,  rebellion  in  Virginia,  135; 
death,  136. 

Bahama  Isles,  38. 

Baker,  Colonel,  killed  at  Ball’s  Bluff,  468. 

Balboa,  Vasco  Nunez  de,  discovers  Pacific 
Ocean,  40. 

Ball,  Washington’s  inauguration,  287. 

Baltimore,  Lord,  settles  Maryland,  119. 

Baltimore  attacked  by  British,  337 ;  riot  in,  444. 

Banks,  General  N.  P.,  supersedes  Butler  at 
New  Orleans,  494;  besieges  Port  Hudson, 
523. 

Barre,  Colonel,  speech  in  Parliament,  191. 

Beauregard,  General,  comma  ds  in  South 
Carolina,  439;  at  Manassas,  458;  at  Pitts¬ 
burg  Landing,  484;  removal  of,  488. 

Bee,  General,  at  Bull  Run,  460. 

Behaim,  Martin,  globe  of  1492,  29. 

Bell,  John,  nominated  for  president,  432. 

Bennington,  battle  of,  237. 

Bentonsville,  battle  at,  575. 

Berkeley,  Sir  William,  Govei'nor  of  Virginia, 
134;  hangs  insurgents,  137. 

Bimini,  Island  of,  discovered,  38. 

Blagdensburg,  repulse  of  Americans,  334. 

Bloody  Brook,  battle  of,  131. 

Bobadilla,  Francis,  arrests  Columbus,  34. 

Bon  Homme  Richard  fights  Serapis,  249. 

Boone,  Daniel,  in  Kentucky,  289. 

Booth,  John  Wilkes,  murders  Lincoln,  584  ; 
capture  and  death,  585. 

Boston,  settled,  102;  description  in  1760,  174; 
massacre,  192;  Port  Bill,  194;  evacuated 
by  the  British,  219. 

Braddock,  General,  commands  British  in  Vir¬ 
ginia.  161. 

Bradford,  William,  second  Governor  of  Plym¬ 
outh  Colony,  99. 

Bragg,  General,  at  Buena  Vista,  388;  re¬ 
treat  through  Tennessee,  540;  proclamation, 
509. 

Brandywine,  battle  of,  230. 

Brant,  John,  Indian  ally  of  British,  234. 


40 


626 


INDEX. 


Brecken  ridge,  John,  nominated  for  president, 
431. 

Broadway,  aspect  in  eighteenth  century,  179. 

Brooks,  Preston,  beats  Charles  Sumner,  420. 

Brown,  .John,  emigrates  to  Kansas,  422; 
leads  slaves  to  Canada,  426;  Harper’s 
Ferry  raid,  427;  execution,  430;  song,  570. 

Buchanan,  James,  elected  president,  426. 

Buckner,  General,  attempts  capture  of  Louis¬ 
ville,  467. 

Buena  Vista,  battle  of,  387 

Bull  Bun,  defeat  at,  461;  second  battle  of, 
500. 

Bunker  Hill,  battle  of,  209;  monument,  211. 

Burgoj'ne,  General  John,  sent  to  America, 
232 ;  surrender  of,  238. 

Burns,  Anthony,  fugitive  slave,  418. 

Burnside,  General  Ambrose,  takes  Newbern, 
479 ;  supersedes  McClellan,  506. 

Burr,  Aaron,  march  to  Quebec,  216 ;  duel  with 
Hamilton,  307 ;  arrest  for  treason,  308. 

Burroughs,  Rev.  George,  hanged  for  witch¬ 
craft,  144. 

Butler,  General  B.  F.,  opposes  secession, 
446;  commands  at  Fortress  Monroe,  451; 
at  Hatteras  Inlet,  469 ;  expedition  to  New 
Orleans,  489;  his  administration  in  New 
Orleans,  494. 

Butler,  John,  leader  at  Wyoming  massacre, 
242. 

Butler,  Zebulon,  bravery  at  Wyoming,  242. 

C. 

Cabot,  John,  sails  for  North  America,  50. 

Cabot,  Sebastian,  discovers  Labrador,  50. 

Calhoun,  John  C.,  leader  of  “  Nullifiers,” 
360. 

California,  Drake  lands  there,  62;  conquest 
of,  386;  gold  discovered,  398;  admitted  to 
the  Union,  401. 

Calvert,  Cecil,  Lord  Baltimore,  sends  colony 
to  Maryland,  119 ;  liberality  of  his  laws,  120. 

Calvert,  Leonard,  leads  colony  to  Maryland, 
119. 

Camden,  battle  of,  265. 

Canada,  refuses  to  join  the  thirteen  colonies, 
217. 

Canbv,  General,  commands  at  Mobile,  576. 

Cano,  Sebastian  del,  42. 

Canoes,  Indian,  68. 

Cape  Verde  Islands,  33. 

Carolinas,  settlement  of  by  Ribault,  54;  grant 
of,  by  Charles  II.,  121. 

Carolina,  North,  settled  at  Albemarle,  121. 

Carolina,  South,  settled  at  Charleston,  121. 

Carteret,  Sir  George,  gets  grants  of  New 
Jersey,  118. 

Cartier,  Jacques,  discovery  of  Canada,  51; 
other  voyages,  52. 


I  Carver,  John,  first  Governor  of  Plymouth 
|  Colony,  99. 
j  Cavaliers,  description  of,  93. 

1  Cedar  Mountain,  battle  of,  500. 

Cerro  Gordo,  assault,  391. 
j  Champe,  John,  pretended  deserter,  258. 
j  Champlain,  Samuel,  fight  on  Lake  Cham¬ 
plain,  151. 

Champlain,  Lake,  battle  of,  339. 

Chancel lorsville,  battle  of,  525. 

Chapultepec,  storming  of,  395. 

Charles  I.  of  England,  gives  charter  to 
Roger  Williams,  105;  beheaded,  108. 

Charles  II.,  made  King  of  England,  117 ; 
grants  lands  to  Penn,  122. 

Charles  V.  of  Germany,  41. 

Charleston,  South  Carolina,  settled,  121  ; 
taken  by  British,  251 ;  celebration  in,  274; 
bombardment  of,  534. 

Charlestown,  Massachusetts,  settled,  102. 

Charter  Oak,  story  of,  140. 

Chattanooga  Valley,  Bragg  at,  541. 

Chicago,  slaughter  at,  319. 

Chickamauga  Valley,  retreat  at,  543. 

Chippewa,  battle  of,  332. 

Christina,  Queen  of  Sweden,  115. 

J  Churubusco,  fight  at,  393. 

Clarke,  George  Rogers,  takes  Vincennes,  245- 

Clay,  Henry,  in  Congress,  361. 

Claybourne,  William,  incites  insurrection  in 
Maryland,  120. 

Clinton,  Sir  Henry,  leads  his  fleet  to  South 
Carolina,  220;  takes  Charleston,  251- 
:  Cockburn,  Admiral,  in  Virginia  waters,  333. 

Cold  Harbor,  battle  of,  553. 

;  Colignv,  Admiral,  sends  colonv  to  Florida, 
53;  death,  58. 

Collins,  Captain,  commander  of  the  Wachu- 
sett,  562. 

Columbus,  Bartholomew,  made  Governor  of 
New  Spain,  33;  goes  to  England,  49. 

Columbus,  Christopher,  birth,  26 ;  career  as 
sailor,  27;  goes  to  Spain,  30;  sets  sail  from 
Palos  31;  discovers  land,  32;  story  of  the 
egg,  34;  disgrace,  34;  death,  35. 

Columbus,  Diego,  30. 

Columbus,  Ferdinand,  35. 

Congress,  seat  of,  296. 

Connecticut,  settled,  106;  preserves  her  char¬ 
ter,  139. 

Constitution,  adoption  of  new,  285. 

Constitution ,  sailing  of  the,  320. 

Continent,  first  journey  across,  298. 

Continental  Congress,  assembled,  194;  mem¬ 
bers,  195;  resolutions,  196;  second  meet¬ 
ing,  204;  Declaration  of  Independence  pre¬ 
sented  and  passed,  221;  vacates  Philadel¬ 
phia,  230. 

Continental  money,  worthlessness  of,  243. 


INDEX.  627 


Contreras,  attack  on,  393. 

Convention  for  drafting  the  Constitution, 
284. 

Corinth,  gathering  of  rebel  armies,  482; 
rebels  decamping  from,  488 ;  battle  of,  511. 

Cornwallis,  Lord,  sends  troops  to  attack 
Washington,  227;  fortifies  Yorktown,  271; 
campaign  in  South  Carolina,  260;  surren¬ 
der  of,  273. 

Cortereal,  Gaspar,  discovers  St.  Lawrence 
River,  36. 

Cortez,  Hernandez,  conquest  of  Mexico,  43, 
65;  in  Mexico,  371. 

Cotton  plant  introduced  into  South  Carolina, 
185. 

Cowpens,  battle  of,  263. 

Cromwell,  Oliver,  becomes  Lord  Protector  of 
England,  108. 

Crown  Point,  captured  by  Ethan  Allen,  206. 

Cumberland,  sinking  of,  480. 

Curtis,  General,  marches  on  General  Price, 


Da  Gama,  Yasco,  33. 

Dahlgren,  Admiral,  renews  bombardment  of 
Charleston,  534. 

Dahlgren,  Colonel,  defeat  and  death,  546. 

Dale,  Sir  Thomas,  Governor  of  Virginia,  83. 

Dallas,  Alexander,  plans  a  new  government 
bank,  357. 

Dare,  Ellinor,  mother  of  first  white  child,  64. 

Dare,  Virginia,  first  child  bom  in  Virginia, 
64. 

Darien,  Isthmus  of,  35. 

Darrah,  Lydia,  patriotic  conduct,  231. 

Daughters  of  Liberty,  191. 

Davis,  Jefferson,  President  of  Southern  Con¬ 
federacy,  434;  capture  of,  587. 

Deane,  Silas,  commissioner  to  France,  240. 

Decatur,  Captain,  captures  British  frigate, 
322 ;  sent  to  Algiers,  345. 

De  la  Ware,  comes  to  Virginia,  83. 

Delaware,  becomes  a  separate  colony,  125. 

Delaware  Bay,  settlement  on,  115. 

Delaware  River,  Washington  crosses,  226. 

D’Estaing,  Count,  joins  American  cause,  241. 

De  Soto,  see  Soto. 

De  Vaca,  Cabe<?a,  crosses  the  continent,  44; 
meets  De  Soto,  45. 

Donelson,  Fort,  capture  of,  476. 

Doniphan,  march  of,  389. 

Dorchester  Heights  fortified  bv  Washington, 
218. 

Dorchester.  Massachusetts,  settled,  102. 

Dorsetshire,  emigration  from,  106. 

Douglas,  Stephen,  Kansas  Nebraska  Bill, 
419. 

Draft,  conditions  of  the,  530. 


Drake,  Francis,  Sir,  attacks  the  Spaniards, 
59 ;  succors  Raleigh’s  colony,  62. 

Dumont,  Colonel,  attacks  Philippi,  454. 

Dupont,  Admiral,  commands  expedition  to 
Sea  Islands,  470 ;  at  Morris  Island,  534. 

Dustin,  Hannah,  prisoner  among  Indians,  147. 

Dyer,  Mary,  hanging  of,  123. 

E. 

Early,  General,  advances  toward  Washington, 
554. 

Edward  VI.  of  England,  91. 

Eliot,  John,  Apostle  of  the  Indians,  102. 

Elizabeth,  Queen  of  England,  59;  Virginia 
named  in  her  honor,  62  ;  succeeds  Edward, 
92. 

Ellsworth,  Col.  Ephraim  E.,  death,  451. 

Emancipation  Proclamation,  516- 

Endicott,  John,  settles  in  Salem,  101. 

England  claims  North  America,  50  ;  at  war 
with  Holland,  138;  war  with  France, 
(1689),  146;  forced  to  obtain  peace,  274; 
outrages  on  American  sailors,  314;  second 
war  with  United  States,  316. 

Erie,  battle  of  Lake,  329. 

Evans,  General,  at  Bull  Run,  460. 

Evans,  Oliver,  his  road  engine,  355. 

Everett,  Edward,  nominated  for  vice-presi¬ 
dent,  432. 

F. 

Fair  Oaks,  battle  of,  498. 

Faneuil,  Peter,  builder  of  Faneuil  Hall,  175. 

Faneuil  Hall,  cradle  of  liberty,  192. 

Farragut,  arrival  of,  at  Ship  Island,  490; 
in  Mobile  Bay,  563. 

Fashions  and  changes  in  clothes,  287. 

Federal  Union  formed,  204. 

Federalists  and  their  leader,  315. 

Ferdinand  of  Aragon,  31;  his  neglect  of 
Columbus,  35. 

Ferguson,  Colonel,  bravado  of,  261. 

Field,  Cyrus  W.,  originates  Atlantic  tele¬ 
graphs,  588. 

Fillmore,  Millard,  becomes  president,  402. 

First  bloodshed  in  Revolution,  203. 

Fitch,  John,  attempts  at  steamboat  naviga¬ 
tion,  309. 

Florida,  steamship,  captured,  562. 

Florida,  discovered,  38;  explored  by  Narvaez, 
44;  explored  by  De  Soto,  45;  Ribault’s 
colony,  54;  St.  Augustine  built,  55;  Spain 
relinquishes  possession,  347  ;  secession, 
434. 

Floyd,  John  B.,  at  Carnifax  Ferry,  456;  in 
command  at  Fort  Donelson,  475. 

Foote,  Commodore,  sent  to  Tennessee,  473; 
arrival  at  Island  No.  10,  486;  sails  to  Mem¬ 
phis,  488 ;  death  of,  534. 


628 


INDEX. 


Forrest,  General,  makes  stand  in  Selma, 
577;  attack  on  Fort  Pillow,  559;  raid 
through  Tennessee,  558 ;  retreat  from  Fort 
Anderson,  558. 

Fort  Blakeley,  taking  of,  577. 

Fort  Brown,  built  on  Bio  Grande,  376. 

Fort  Crown  Point,  situation  of,  1C7. 

Fort  Duquesne,  site  of  Pittsburg,  160;  at¬ 
tacked  by  Braddock,  161. 

Fort  Forty,  in  Wyoming  massacre,  243. 

Fort  Frontenac,  built  by  La  Salle,  167. 

Fort  Gaines,  surrender  of,  564. 

Fort  Griswold,  slaughter  at,  269. 

Fort  Henry,  attack  on,  473;  surrender  of,  474. 

Fort  Jacksofi,  bombardment  of,  491. 

Fort  Leavenworth,  situation  of,  380. 

Fort  McAllister  taken,  572. 

Fort  Morgan,  surrender  of,  564. 

Fort  Moultrie  besieged  by  rebels,  438. 

Fort  Pillow,  Foote  takes  it,  488 ;  butchery  at, 
559. 

Fort  Powell  blown  up,  564. 

Fort  Saunders,  assault  on,  543. 

Fort  St.  Philip,  surrender  of,  493. 

Fort  Stanwix,  attack  on,  235. 

Fort  Sullivan,  attack  by  Sir  H.  Clinton,  220. 

Fort  Sumter  fired  upon,  438. 

Fort  Ticonderoga,  situation  of,  167. 

Fort  Vincennes  captured  by  Americans,  245. 

Fort  William  Henry  built,  168. 

Fortress  Monroe,  Butler  takes  command,  451. 

France,  possessions  in  America,  158;  loses 
her  lands  in  North  America,  173;  effect 
of  French  Revolution  on  America,  293;  a 
threatened  war  with,  295. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  account  of  early  life, 
182;  made  postmaster  of  colonies,  206; 
commissioner  in  France,  240 ;  at  the  court 
of  France,  275;  his  three  articles  of  peace, 
278;  opposes  slavery,  406. 

Frazer,  burial  of,  238. 

Fredericksburg,  attack  on,  507. 

EYee  trade,  clamor  for  by  the  South,  359. 

Fremont,  John  C.,  explores  Rocky  Mountains, 
385;  conquest  of  California,  386;  nominated 
for  president,  426;  in  command  in  Missouri, 
465 ;  deposed,  465. 

Frenchtown,  slaughter  at,  323. 

Frietchie,  Barbara,  her  patriotism,  501. 

Fugitive  Slave  Law,  418. 

Fulton,  Robert,  experiments  in  steamboat¬ 
ing,  309. 

G. 

Gage,  Governor,  of  Massachusetts,  193;  sends 
troops  to  Concord,  198;  issues  proclamation, 
207. 

Gansevoort,  Colonel,  defends  Fort  Stanwix, 
234. 


Garner,  Margaret,  story  of,  419. 

Garnett,  General,  death  of,  455. 

Garrison,  William  Lloyd,  mobbed  in  Boston, 
414. 

Gates,  General  Horatio,  aids  in  organizing 
army,  212;  victory  over  Burgoyne,  238; 
sent  to  oppose  Cornwallis,  260. 

Gates,  Sir  Thomas,  shipwreck,  82;  comes  to 
Virginia,  83. 

Genoa,  birthplace  of  Columbus,  29. 

George  II.,  King  of  England,  126;  death,  185. 

George  III.,  accession  to  throne,  185. 

Georgia,  settled,  126 ;  secession  of,  434. 

Germantown,  battle  of,  230. 

Gettysburg,  battle  of,  527 ;  horrors  of  battle¬ 
field,  528;  consecration  of  national  ceme¬ 
tery,  529. 

Gibson,  Fort,  taking  of,  521. 

Gilbert,  Humphrey,  gets  patent  for  discovery, 
59;  reaches  Newfoundland,  60;  ship¬ 
wreck,  61. 

Glass-making  in  Virginia,  86. 

Goffe,  William,  regicide,  132. 

Gorges,  Fernando,  gets  land  grants  in  Maine 
and  New  Hampshire,  107 ;  sends  colonies 
to  Maine,  108. 

Gosnold,  Bartholomew,  goes  to  Virginia,  75; 
member  of  first  council,  76 

Gourgues,  Dominic  de,  revenges  his  country¬ 
men,  57. 

Government,  forming  a  new,  283. 

Grant,  General,  occupies  Paducah,  466  ;  plan 
of  attack  in  Kentucky,  473;  loses  supplies 
at  Holly  Springs,  519;  at  Chattanooga, 
542;  made  lieutenant-general  of  the  Union 
armies,  548;  plan  against  Lee’s  army,  549; 
his  measures  against  Lee,  552 ;  before  Rich¬ 
mond,  579;  receives  Lee’s  surrender,  581; 
elected  president,  586. 

Greeley,  Horace,  New  York  riot,  532. 

Green  Mountain  Boys,  206. 

Greene,  General,  campaign  in  South  Carolina, 
261. 

Grenville,  Richard,  goes  with  Raleigh’s  col¬ 
ony,  62. 

Guerrillas,  their  warfare  in  Missouri,  478. 

Gueniere,  capture  of,  321. 

Guilford  Court  House,  South  Carolina,  de¬ 
feat  at,  265. 

Gulf  of  Mexico,  39. 

Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence  discovered,  37. 

II. 

Hale,  Nathan,  fate  of,  256. 

Hamilton,  A.,  secretary  of  treasury,  287;  duel 
with  Burr,  307. 

Hampton  Roads,  arrival  of  one  hundred  ships, 
479. 


INDEX. 


629 


Hancock,  John,  graduated  at  Harvard,  175; 
president  Massachusetts  Assembly,  208. 

Harper’s  Ferry,  description  of,  427 ;  sur¬ 
render,  505;  recapture,  506. 

Harrison,  William  II.,  elected  president,  368; 
death  of,  369 ;  pursuit  of  Proctor  and  Te- 
cumseh,  331. 

Hartford,  flag-ship  of  Farragut,  563. 

Harvard  College  founded,  175. 

Hayti  discovered,  32. 

Hazen,  General,  attacks  Fort  McAllister, 
572. 

Hendrick,  King,  death  of,  165. 

Hennepin,  Louis,  explores  to  Falls  of  St.  An¬ 
thony,  157. 

Henrietta  Maria,  Queen  of  England,  119. 

Henry  VII.  of  England,  30;  Bartholomew 
Columbus  applies  to  him,  49;  sends  Cabot 
to  North  America,  50. 

Henry  VIII.  of  England,  91. 

Henry,  Prince,  of  Portugal,  28. 

Henry,  Patrick,  orator  of  Virginia,  185; 
speech  for  freedom,  189. 

Herkimer,  General,  brave  death,  235. 

Hessians,  capture  of,  226. 

Hispaniola  discovered,  32 ;  colony  of,  33. 

Holland,  pilgrims  in,  94;  description  of,  109. 

Hood,  General,  defeated  at  Nashville,  568. 

Hooker,  General,  crosses  Rappahannock,  525. 

Hopkins,  Esek,  commands  American  navy, 
246. 

Hornet ,  battle  with  Peacock ,  326. 

Houston,  Samuel,  leader  in  Texas,  374. 

Howe,  Admiral,  brings  fleet  to  New  York, 
228. 

Howe,  General,  evacuates  Boston,  219 ;  enters 
Trenton,  225. 

Howe,  Lord,  killed  at  Ticonderoga,  170. 

Howe,  Mrs.,  story  other  captivity,  168. 

Hudson,  Henry,  explores  Hudson  River, 
111;  in  Hudson  Bay,  112. 

Hudson,  Fort,  surrender  of,  523. 

Hudson  River,  discovered,  111. 

Huguenots  in  France,  53. 

Hull,  Captain,  naval  victory,  321. 

Hull,  General,  surrenders  Detroit,  317. 

Hunter,  General,  at  Bull  Run,  459;  Foily 
Island,  534. 

Hutchinson,  Anne,  banishment,  103  ;  massa¬ 
cre,  115. 

Hutchinson,  Thomas,  Governor  of  Massa¬ 
chusetts,  188;  house  mobbed  by  patriots, 
189. 

I. 

Icelanders  said  to  have  discovered  America, 
25. 

Independence  declared,  221. 

India,  28. 


Indian  corn  introduced  into  Europe,  66. 

Indians ,  description  of,  so  called  by  Colum¬ 
bus,  32 ;  different  tribes  of,  65 ;  personal 
appearance,  66 ;  houses  and  dress,  67 ;  ca¬ 
noes,  68;  food,  69;  implements,  70;  dances, 
71;  religion,  72. 

Indians,  treaty  with,  345 ;  hostilities  toward 
settlers,  290. 

Indian  wars  in  Jackson’s  administration,  364. 

Isabella  of  Castile,  patron  of  Columbus,  31; 
her  death,  35. 

Island  No.  10,  fortifications  on,  486;  captured, 
487. 

J. 

Jackson,  General  Andrew,  representative 
from  Tennessee,  292;  fights  the  Indians, 
346;  elected  president,  353;  war  with  the 
United  States  Bank,  358;  Nullifiers,  362. 

Jackson,  Claiborne  F.,  Governor  of  Missouri, 
462. 

Jackson,  General,  Thomas,  at  Bull  Run,  460; 
takes  Harper’s  Ferry,  505;  death,  525. 

James  I.  succeeds  Elizabeth,  74;  pers.  cutes 
the  Puritans,  94;  gives  grants  in  America, 
107. 

James  II.,  Duke  of  York,  New  York  named 
for  him,  118  ;  made  king,  138  ;  deposed,  139. 

Jamestown  settled,  75. 

Jasper,  Sergeant,  brave  deed  of,  220;  death, 
244. 

Jay,  John,  his  services  to  the  colonies,  277. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  at  William  and  Mary’s 
College,  185;  member  Continental  Con¬ 
gress,  204;  Governor  of  Virginia,  269;  po¬ 
litical  beliefs,  286;  elected  president,  297; 
second  term,  306;  death,  348;  opposition  to 
slavery,  406. 

Jesuits  in  America,  152  ;  good  work  of  mis¬ 
sionaries,  153. 

Jogues,  Isaac,  sufferings  from  Indians,  152. 

John  II.,  King  of  Portugal,  30. 

Johnson,  Andrew,  becomes  president,  586. 

Johnson,  Sir  William,  influence  with  Indians, 
161;  description  of,  164. 

Johnston,  General  A.  S.,  in  Kentucky,  476; 
killed  at  Pittsburg  Landing,  485. 

Johnston,  General  Joseph  E.,  at  Bull  Run, 
459;  removed  from  command,  567 ;  last  ef¬ 
fort  in  South  Carolina,  573. 

Joliet,  Louis,  journey  down  Mississippi  River, 
154. 

Jones,  John  Paul,  battle  with  Serapis ,  249. 

Jones,  Captain,  naval  success,  322. 

K. 

Kalb,  Baron  de,  enters  American  army,  229. 

Kansas,  emigration  to,  421;  civil  war,  424. 


030 


INDEX. 


Kearney,  Captain  Philip,  in  Mexico,  394. 

Kearney,  General  Stephen,  conquest  of  New 
Mexico,  382. 

Kelly,  General,  wounded,  454. 

Kendall,  George,  goes  to  Virginia,  75;  mem¬ 
ber  of  first  council  in  Virginia,  76. 

Kenesaw  Mountain,  battle  of,  566. 

Kentucky  becomes  a  State,  291 ;  neutrality  of, 
467. 

Key,  Francis  Scott,  writes  “  Star  Spangled 
Banner,”  338. 

Kieft,  William,  Governor  of  New  York,  114. 

Kilpatrick,  General,  raid  in  Virginia,  544; 
in  Sherman’s  army,  570. 

King  George’s  War,  149. 

King’s  Mountain,  battle  of,  261. 

King  William’s  War,  148. 

Kipp’s  Landing,  223. 

Kosciusko,  Thaddeus,  joins  Americans,  262. 

L. 

Labrador  discovered,  36. 

Lafayette,  Marquis  de,  arrival  in  America, 
229;  wounded  at  Brandywine,  230;  in 
France,  292;  visit  to  America,  347. 

La  Salle,  Chevalier  Robert,  explores  Missis¬ 
sippi  River,  155;  murder  of,  156. 

Laudonniere,  Renb  de,  commands  Huguenot 
colony,  55. 

Laurens,  Henry,  his  services  and  capture, 
276. 

Lawrence,  Captain  James,  death  of,  327. 

Lawrence,  Kansas,  besieged  by  Missourians, 
425;  sack  of,  539. 

Lee,  Arthur,  commissioner  to  France,  240. 

Lee,  Charles,  assists  in  organizing  army,  212. 

Lee,  Richard  Henry,  rising  lawyer  in  Virginia, 
185. 

Lee,  Major  Henry,  attempts  to  take  Arnold, 
258. 

Lee,  General  Robert  E ,  joins  rebel  cause, 
456  ;  made  general-in-chief,  498 ;  march  to 
Pennsylvania,  526 ;  march  to  Maryland,  501. 
surrender  of,  581. 

Lexington,  battle  of,  204. 

Lexington,  Mississippi,  taken  by  rebels,  465. 

Libby  Prison,  545. 

Lincoln,  General,  plans  siege  of  Savannah, 
244;  besieged  in  Charleston,  251. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  debates  with  Douglas, 
420;  early  life,  432;  election,  434;  inaug¬ 
ural  speech,  436;  emancipation  proclama¬ 
tion,  516;  last  speech,  583;  murder  of,  584. 

Locke,  John,  makes  laws  for  Carolinas,  121. 

London  Company  colonize  Virginia,  75. 

Longfellow,  H.  W.,  ballad  of  “Humphrey 
Gilbert,”  61;  “Evangeline,”  163;  “Paul 
Revere’s  Ride,”  199. 


Lookout  Mountain,  battle  of,  543. 

Louisiaua  receives  its  name,  156;  purchase 
of,  298;  secession  of,  434;  uprising  in. 
523. 

Louisville,  Kentucky,  guarded  by  Anderson, 
467. 

Lovejoy,  Elijah,  killing  of,  414. 

Lucas,  Eliza,  introduces  cotton,  185. 

Lundy,  Benjamin,  first  abolitionist,  413. 

Lundy’s  Lane,  battle  of,  333. 

Luther,  Martin,  called  a  fanatic,  414. 

Lynn,  Massachusetts,  settled,  102. 

Lyons,  General  Nathaniel,  guards  St.  Louis, 
463  ;  killed,  464. 

M. 

Macdonough,  Commodore,  naval  battle  of, 
340. 

Madison,  James,  elected  president,  311;  at 
battle  of  Blagdensburg,  334. 

Magellan,  voyage  around  the  world,  41. 

Magellan,  Straits  of,  discovered,  42. 

Magoffin,  Beriah,  Governor  of  Kentucky,  467. 

Mails,  colonial,  206. 

Maine,  settled,  108;  purchase  by  Massachu¬ 
setts,  134. 

Manhattan  Island,  settled,  113;  bought  of 
Indians,  114. 

Marion,  Francis,  story  of,  252. 

Marquette,  James,  explores  Mississippi  River, 
154. 

Martin,  John,  member  of  Virginia  council, 
75. 

Mary,  Queen  of  England,  91 ;  called  “  Bloody 
Mary,”  92. 

Maryland,  settled,  119;  liberal  laws,  120; 
invaded  by  rebels,  501. 

Mason,  James,  captured  by  Wilkes,  470. 

Mason,  John,  proprietor  of  New  Hampshire, 
108. 

Massachusetts,  settled,  96 ;  suffering  in  King 
Philip’s  War,  133;  buys  province  of  Maine, 
134;  abolishes  slavery,  405, 

Massachusetts  Bay  Colony  formed,  102. 

Massasoit  makes  treaty  with  English,  99. 

Matthew,  Captain,  planter  in  Virginia,  89. 

Mayflower  sets  sail,  95. 

McClellan,  General  G.  B.,  in  West  Virginia, 
454;  made  general-in-chief,  468;  failures 
in  peninsular  campaign,  498;  advance  on 
Manassas,  496;  at  Antietam,  503;  replaced 
by  Burnside,  506. 

McCulloch,  General  Benjamin,  distress  in  his 
army,  463;  death,  478. 

McDowell,  General,  commands  in  Virginia, 
457. 

McHenry,  Fort,  bombardment  of,  337. 

McPherson,  General,  death  of,  567. 


INDEX. 


631 


Meade,  General  George  G.,  commands  at  Get¬ 
tysburg,  527. 

Mercer,  General  Hugh,  death  of,  228. 

Merrimack,  rebel  iron-clad,  480;  depreda¬ 
tions  of,  481. 

Mexico,  invaded  by  Cortez,  43,  371;  history 
of,  372. 

Millen,  prison  pen  at,  571. 

Minuit,  Peter,  brings  Swedish  colony  to  New 
Jersey,  115- 

Mississippi  River,  discovered,  47. 

Mississippi  secedes,  434. 

Missouri,  neutrality  of,  462;  Halleck  com¬ 
mands  there,  477;  rebel  element  in,  560. 

Missouri  Compromise,  408;  repeal  of,  419. 

Missouri  River,  discovery  of  its  source,  300. 

Mob  in  New  York,  531. 

Moffat,  Captain  John,  his  reputation,  562. 

Monitor,  fights  with  Merrimack,  482. 

Monmouth,  battle  of,  240. 

Monroe,  James,  elected  president,  345;  Mon¬ 
roe  doctrine,  348. 

Montcalm,  General,  besieges  Fort  William 
Henry,  169 ;  killed  at  Quebec,  172. 

Monterey,  siege  of,  379. 

Montgomery,  General,  gallant  death  of,  217. 

Montreal  discovered  by  Cartier,  52;  taken  by 
Montgomery,  216. 

Morgan,  John,  raid  of,  537;  capture,  538. 

Morris,  Robert,  services  in  Revolution,  277. 

Morristown,  Washington’s  head -quarters, 
250. 

Morse,  Samuel  F.  B.,  invention  of  telegraph, 
370. 

Moultrie,  Colonel,  defends  Charleston,  220. 

Mulligan,  Colonel,  holds  his  post  at  Lexing¬ 
ton,  465. 

Mumfordsville  captured,  509. 

Murfreesboro’,  battle  of,  512. 

Murray,  Mrs.  Robert,  saves  the  army,  224. 

Mutiny  in  Revolutionary  War,  250. 

N. 

Narvaez,  Pamphilo  de,  explores  Florida,  44. 

Nashville,  besieged  by  Hood,  568. 

Newbern,  capture  of,  479. 

New  England  named,  90. 

New  France,  Canada  so  called,  108. 

New  Hampshire,  settled,  108  ;  a  royal  colony, 
134;  revolutionary  outbreak,  189;  abol¬ 
ishes  slavery,  405. 

New  Haven  Colony  formed,  107. 

New  Jersey,  tour  through,  181;  militia  in 
Revolution,  228. 

New  Orleans,  Jackson  defends  it,  342  ;  battle 
of,  343;  taken  by  Farragut  and  Butler, 
493. 


Newport,  Christopher,  member  of  Virginia 
council,  76. 

Newport  taken  by  British,  225. 

New  York  city*,  in  1760,  179;  held  by  British, 
224;  evacuation  by  British,  279;  rejoicing 
in,  279. 

New  York,  first  settled,  113;  patriotic  mobs, 
189;  abolishes  slavery,  405. 

Nina,  ship  in  fleet  of  Columbus,  31. 

North  Carolina  settled,  121;  secession  of, 
449. 

,  Norwegians  said  to  discover  America,  25. 

Nova  Scotia,  formerly  called  Acadia,  149. 

Nullifiers  of  South  Carolina,  Jackson’s  treat¬ 
ment  of,  359. 

O. 

Oglethorpe,  General  James,  founder  of 
Georgia,  126;  treaty  with  Indians,  127; 
refuses  to  tight  against  colonies,  207 ;  for¬ 
bids  slavery,  404. 

Ohio  Land  Company,  288. 

1  Ohio,  made  a  State,  297. 

Opecancanough  succeeds  Powhatan,  84. 

Orinoco  River  discovered,  34. 

Ortiz,  John,  story  of,  46. 

Osceola,  chief  of  Seminoles,  364. 

Otis,  James,  argument  on  writs  of  assist¬ 
ance,  188;  death,  196. 

P. 

Pacific  Ocean,  discovery  of,  40. 

Pacific  Railroad  built,  589. 

Pakenham,  Sir  Edward,  at  New  Orleans, 
342;  death,  344. 

Palo  Alto,  battle  of,  376. 

Palos,  Columbus  sets  sail  from,  31. 

Panama,  Isthmus,  35. 

Panic,  financial,  367. 

Parties,  two  political,  286. 

Patapsco  River,  337. 

Patterson,  General,  fails  to  join  McDowell, 
459. 

Paulding,  John,  one  of  Andre’s  captors,  255. 

Peace,  proclamation  of,  278;  celebration  of, 
344. 

Peacock,  naval  battle  of,  326. 

Pea  Ridge,  battle  of,  478. 

Pegram,  General,  surrenders,  454. 

Penn,  Admiral,  father  of  William  Penn,  123. 

Penn,  William,  turns  Quaker,  123;  buys 
land  in  North  America,  124. 

Pennsylvania  settled,  124;  origin  of  name, 
125;  riflemen  in  Revolutionary  War,  214; 
abolishes  slavery,  405. 

Perry,  Oliver,  at  battle  of  Lake  Erie,  328; 
death  of,  345. 

Peru  entered  by  Pizarro,  40 ;  conquest  of,  43. 


632 


INDEX. 


Petersburg,  Union  army  besiege,  556. 

Phelps,  General,  encamped  on  Ship  Island, 
496. 

Philadelphia,  burning  of  the  ship,  305. 

Philadelphia,  laid  out,  125;  appearance  in 
1760,  181;  taken  by  British,  230;  occupied 
by  Washington,  241. 

Philip,  King,  son  of  Massasoit,  130;  makes 
war  on  colonies,  131 ;  death  of,  132. 

Philippi,  battle  of,  454. 

Phillips,  Wendell,  speech  in  Faneuil  Hall, 
415. 

Pierce,  Franklin,  made  president,  403  ;  friend 
to  the  South,  417. 

Pilgrims,  embark  for  America,  95 ;  settle  at 
Plymouth,  96. 

Pillow,  General,  in  rebel  army,  467. 

Pinta ,  ship  of  Columbus,  31. 

Pinzon,  Alonzo,  friend  of  Columbus,  31 ;  goes 
on  voyages,  36. 

Pinzon,  Vincente  Yanez,  commands  the 
Nina,  31;  voyage  to  South  America,  36. 

Pirates,  encroachments  of,  345. 

Pitcher,  Molly,  at  Monmouth,  241. 

Pitt,  Sir  William,  minister  of  George  III., 
186 ;  speech  in  Parliament,  196. 

Pittsburg  Landing,  battle  of,  484. 

Pizzaro,  Francis,  enters  Peru,  40 ;  conquest,  43. 

Planters  in  Virginia,  84. 

Plattsburg,  battle  of,  340. 

Plymouth  Company  formed,  75. 

Plymouth  Colony  settled,  96. 

Pocahontas,  saves  John  Smith,  81;  marries, 
83 ;  in  England,  91. 

Polk,  James  K.,  made  president,  375;  end 
of  administration,  396. 

Polk,  General  Leonidas,  sent  to  Island  No. 
10,  476;  killed,  567. 

Polo,  Marco,  travels  in  India,  28. 

Ponce  de  Leon,  Juan,  discovers  Florida,  38. 

Pope,  General  John,  victory  at  New  Madrid, 
486 ;  commands  in  Virginia,  499. 

Porter,  Commodore,  at  Vicksburg,  520. 

Porto  Rico,  38. 

Portugal,  Columbus  at  court  of,  29;  rivalry 
of  Spain,  33. 

Potatoes  discovered,  41. 

Powhatan  spares  Smith,  81 ;  death  of,  84, 

Prester  John,  28. 

Price,  General  Sterling,  neutrality  of,  463. 

Princeton,  battle  of,  228. 

Prison  pens  in  the  South,  544. 

Prison  ships,  condition  of,  225. 

Protective  tariff  passed,  359. 

Protestants  in  England,  92. 

Providence,  built,  105. 

Pulaski,  Count,  enters  American  army,  229; 
death  of,  244. 

Puritans,  description  of,  93;  settle  in  Hol¬ 


land,  94;  emigration  to  New  England,  101; 
persecutions,  103. 

Putnam,  Israel,  wolf  story,  212;  in  New 
York,  219;  narrow  escape,  224. 

Q. 

Quakers,  persecution  of,  123. 

Quantrell’s  raid,  538 

Quebec  built,  53;  taken  by  English,  172; 
American  defeat  there,  217. 

Queen  Anne’s  War,  148. 

Queenstown,  expedition  to,  319. 

Quincy,  J-,  leader  of  Federalists,  315. 

R. 

Railways,  introduction  of,  354. 

Raisin,  River,  massacre  on  the,  325- 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  in  Paris,  59;  buys 
Humphrey  Gilbert’s  commission,  61 ;  sends 
colonies,  62,  63;  death,  65;  introduces 
smoking  in  England,  86. 

Randolph,  Peyton,  rising  lawyer  in  Virginia, 
185. 

Ratcliffe,  John,  member  of  council  in  Vir¬ 
ginia,  76. 

Red  River  expedition,  558. 

Reed,  General,  his  loyalty  to  his  country,  241. 

Republicans,  Henry  Clay  leader,  315 ;  elect 
Lincoln,  434. 

Resaca  de  la  Palma,  battle  of,  377. 

Resaca,  tight  at,  566. 

Revere,  Paul,  ride  to  Lexington,  199. 

Rhode  Island,  settled,  105;  gets  royal  char¬ 
ter,  105 ;  abolishes  slavery,  405. 

Ribault,  builds  Fort  Caroline,  54 ;  second 
visit  to  Florida,  55;  massacre,  56. 

Richmond,  rebel  capital,  457 ;  McClellan’s 
march  on,  496 ;  last  siege,  579 ;  evacuation, 
580. 

Ridesel,  General,  commands  Hessian  troops, 
234. 

Riot  in  New  York  city,  532. 

Rochambeau,  Count  de,  comes  from  France, 
253 ;  march  to  Virginia,  271. 

Rolfe,  John,  marries  Pocahontas,  83. 

Roque,  De  la,  founds  Quebec,  53. 

Rosencrans  in  Virginia,  454 ;  succeeds  Buell, 
510 ;  provisions  Nashville,  512  ;  march 
through  Tennessee,  540  ;  at  Chattanooga, 
542. 

Ross,  General,  commands  British  troops,  334, 
death  of,  337. 

S. 

St.  Augustine,  building  of,  55. 

St.  Clair,  General,  evacuates  Ticonderoga.  234. 


INDEX. 


633 


8alzburgers  emigrated  to  Georgia.  126. 

Sanitary  Commission,  work  of,  528. 

San  Salvador  discovered,  32. 

Santa  Anna,  Mexican  patriot,  387 ;  evacu¬ 
ates  Mexico,  396. 

Santa  Maria,  ship  of  Columbus,  31. 

Saratoga,  battle  of,  237. 

Savannah  settled,  126  ;  siege  of,  244  ;  British 
give  up,  274. 

Schuyler,  General  Phillip,  treats  with  Mo¬ 
hawk  Indians,  215;  stationed  at  Fort  Ed¬ 
ward,  233 ;  superseded  by  Gates,  237. 

Scott,  General  Winfield,  sent  to  the  Indians, 
364;  at  Lake  Ontario,  332;  campaign  in 
Mexico,  390;  general-in-chief,  445. 

Selma  taken  by  Unionists,  577. 

Seminoles,  insurrection  of  the,  346. 

Semmes,  Raphael,  commands  Alabama ,  561. 

Serapis,  battle  with  Bon  Homme  Richard , 
249. 

Settlers,  new,  trials  of,  289. 

Seven  Days’  Retreat,  498. 

Seventh  New  York  Regiment,  march  of,  446. 

Sheridan’s  ride,  555;  at  Five  Forks,  580. 

Sherman,  General,  in  Kentucky,  467 ;  takes 
command  in  the  West,  564;  march  to  At¬ 
lanta,  565;  march  to  sea,  569;  enters  Sa¬ 
vannah,  572. 

Ship  Island,  fortifications  on,  489. 

Shirley,  Governor,  of  Massachusetts,  161. 

Sigel,  General  F.,  leads  loval  Germans,  463. 

Slave  trade,  horrors  of,  406. 

Slavery,  beginning  of,  403 ;  history,  408. 

Slavery  introduced  into  colonies,  87. 

Slaves,  their  connection  with  the  war,  514 , 
loyalty  to  the  Union,  515 ;  emancipation  of, 
516;  regiments  organized,  517. 

Slidell,  John,  sent  to  France,  470. 

Smith,  Captain  John,  sails  for  Virginia,  75; 
adventures  in  Europe,  76  ;  work  in  the 
Jamestown  colony,  80  ;  prisoner  among 
Indians,  81;  goes  to  New  England,  90. 

Smith,  Gerrit,  early  abolitionist,  423. 

Smith,  Kirby,  at  Bull  Run,  461;  enters  Frank¬ 
fort,  509. 

Somers,  Sir  George,  shipwrecked,  82 ;  comes 
to  Virginia,  83. 

Soto,  Ferdinand  de,  in  Peru  with  Pizarro, 
45;  sets  sail  for  Florida,  45;  finds  the  Mis¬ 
sissippi  River,  47 ;  death  of,  48. 

South,  clamor  for  free  trade  by  the,  359. 

South  Carolina,  patriotism  of  women  of,  263; 
signs  of  insurrection  in,  362;  affairs  in,  260; 
secedes,  434. 

Spain,  Columbus  goes  thither,  30;  sovereigns 
of,  31. 

Spanish  Fort,  taking  of,  577. 

Speedwell  sets  sail  for  America,  95. 

Stamp  Act  passed,  188 ;  repealed,  192. 


Standish,  Miles,  soldier  of  Plymouth  Colony, 
99. 

Standish,  Rose,  wife  of  Miles,  99. 

Stark,  General  John,  speech  at  Bennington, 
237. 

Steam,  introduction  of,  308;  land  travel  by, 
354. 

Steamer,  first  river,  310. 

Steinheil,  Professor,  his  telegraphic  system, 
370. 

Stephens,  Alexander,  of  Georgia,  434. 

Stephenson,  George,  his  efforts  in  steam  trav¬ 
eling,  356. 

Steuben,  Baron,  military  disciplinarian,  251; 
in  military  tribunal  which  condemns  Andre, 
257. 

Stony  Point,  capture  of,  245. 

Stuyvesant,  Peter,  Governor  of  New  York, 
117. 

Sumner,  Charles,  beaten  by  Brooks,  420. 

Swedes,  purchase  New  Jersey,  116. 

T. 

Tarleton,  Colonel,  massacres  militia,  252. 

Taxation  of  colonies,  186. 

Taylor,  Dick,  General,  command  in  Alabama, 
577. 

Taylor,  Zachary,  nicknamed  “Old  Zach,” 
375;  marches  to  Rio  Grande,  376;  elected 
president,  397  ;  death,  401. 

Tea  taxed,  193. 

Tecumseh,  treaty  with,  312  ;  allied  against 
Americans,  317  ;  killed,  331. 

Telegraph,  introduction  of,  367 ;  laying  first 
wire,  368;  Atlantic  cable,  589. 

Tennessee  becomes  a  State,  291;  secedes,  449. 

Terra  del  Fuego,  42 

Texas,  troubles  about  annexation,  371; 
made  a  State,  396 ;  secedes,  434. 

Thames,  battle  of  the,  331 

Thomas,  General,  defends  Nashville,  568. 

Ticonderoga  taken  by  Ethan  Allen,  207. 

Tobacco  introduced  into  England,  86;  wives 
bought  with  it,  88. 

Tories,  persecution  of,  197 ;  departure  from 
Boston,  218. 

Tournament  in  Philadelphia,  239. 

Townsend,  Charles,  on  American  affairs,  190. 

Trenton,  battle  of,  226. 

Tryon,  Tory  Governor  of  New  York,  232. 

Turner,  John,  picture  of,  407. 

Twiggs,  General,  joins  rebel  cause,  437. 

Tyler,  John,  becomes  president,  369. 

U. 

United  States  Bank,  Jackson’s  war  on,  357. 

Utrecht,  peace  of,  149. 


634 


INDEX. 


y. 

Valley  Forge,  suffering  of  American  army 
there,  239. 

Van  Buren  M.,  elected  president,  364;  and 
opposes  Texas  annexation,  374. 

Van  Wert,  Isaac,  one  of  Andre’s  captors,  255. 

Vera  Cruz,  siege  of,  390. 

Vermont  buys  her  independence,  291;  volun¬ 
teers  from,  339;  opposition  to  slavery,  405. 

Verrazano,  Juan,  discovers  New  York,  51. 

Vespucci,  first  voyage,  35;  America  named 
for  him,  36. 

Vicksburg,  plan  of  siege,  520;  taken,  522. 

Virginia  named  for  the  queen,  62;  perma¬ 
nent  settlement,  75;  planters  in,  85;  Ba¬ 
con’s  rebellion,  135;  condition  in  1760, 
183 ;  first  meeting  held,  189 ;  slaves  landed, 
403;  prosperity  with  slave  labor,  411; 
secession,  448. 

W. 

Wachusett ,  ship,  takes  the  Florida ,  562. 

Wallace,  General  Lew.,  protects  Cincinnati, 
509. 

Warner,  Seth,  at  Bennington,  237. 

Warren,  Joseph,  killed  at  Bunker  Hill,  211. 

Washington  city,  invasion  of,  337. 

Washington,  George,  expedition  to  the  Ohio, 
159  ;  services  in  French  and  Indian  war, 
160;  planter  on  Potomac,  184;  made  com¬ 
mander-in-chief,  205;  muster  of  his  army, 
212;  fortifies  Dorchester  Heights,  218; 
enters  Boston,  219;  in  New  York,  223;  re¬ 
treat  through  Jersey,  225;  crosses  the  Dela¬ 
ware,  226;  piety,  240;  revolt  in  his  armies, 
268;  march  to  Yorktown,  271;  disbanding 
of  army,  279;  inaugurated  president,  285; 
re-elected,  291;  expiration  of  term,  294; 
death,  296 ;  letter  to  Lafayette,  406. 

Washington,  John,  fights  Indians  in  Mary¬ 
land,  135. 

Watertown,  Massachusetts,  settled,  102. 

Watt,  .James,  experiments  with  steam,  174; 
his  invention,  308. 

Wayne,  General  Anthony,  storms  Stony 
Point,  245;  mutiny  among  his  troops,  267; 
expedition  against  Indians,  290;  death,  291. 

Webster,  Daniel,  his  oratory,  361;  speech  for 
the  Union,  363. 

Wellington,  Duke  of,  his  troops  in  Virginia, 
333. 

Wesley,  John,  in  Georgia  Colon}',  128. 

West  Country  people,  emigration  to  Connect¬ 
icut,  106. 

West  Indian  Company,  113. 


West  Indies,  name,  32. 

West  Virginia  made  a  State,  449. 

Whalley,  Edward,  the  regicide,  132. 

Whigs  in  Revolution,  197. 

Whiskey  Insurrection,  294. 

White,  John,  colony  in  Virginia,  63. 

White  Plains,  Washington  encamped  at,  224. 

Whittier,  John,  poet  of  anti-slavery  cause, 
415;  “Barbara  Frietchie,”  501. 

Wigfall,  General,  goes  to  Sumter,  439. 

Wilderness,  battle  of,  551. 

Wilkes,  Captain,  takes  Mason  and  Slidell,  471. 

William  and  Mary,  sovereigns  of  England, 
121,  139. 

Williams,  Daniel,  one  of  Andre’s  captors,  255. 

Williams,  Colonel  Ephraim,  founds  Williams 
College,  165. 

Williams,  Roger,  minister  in  Salem,  104; 
settles  Rhode  Island,  105. 

Wilson,  General  James,  in  Alabama,  577. 

Winchester,  battle  of,  554. 

Winder,  General,  musters  troops,  333. 

Windsor,  lirst  town  in  Connecticut,  settled, 
107. 

Wingfield,  Edward,  first  Governor  of  Virginia, 
76. 

Winslow,  Captain,  captures  Alabama,  561. 

Winslow,  General,  expedition  to  Acadie,  162. 

Winslow,  Josiah,  commands  in  King  Philip’s 
War,  133. 

W’inthrop,  John,  Governor  of  Massachusetts 
Bay  Colony,  103. 

Winthrop,  Theodore,  letter  of,  446;  heroic 
death  of,  453. 

Wisconsin  admitted,  396. 

Wise,  General  Henry,  encamped  in  West 
Virginia,  455. 

Witchcraft  in  Salem,  141. 

Wolfe,  General  James,  takes  Quebec,  172. 

Women  of  the  South,  devotion  of,  549. 

Wool,  General,  march  through  Texas,  386; 
work  in  civil  war,  445;  commands  at  For¬ 
tress  Monroe,  469 

Worth,  General,  at  Monterey,  379. 

Wyoming  massacre,  242. 

Y. 

Yale  College  founded,  178. 

Yorktown,  Cornwallis  fortifies,  271 ;  siege  and 
victory,  272;  undecisive  battle  of,  497. 

Z. 

Zagonyi,  Major  Charles,  commands  I  re- 
mont’s  body  guard,  465. 

Zollicoffer,  Felix,  march  in  Kentucky,  467. 


INDEX. 


635 


INDEX  TO  CHAPTERS  LXI.-LXIII. 


Alabama  Claims,  598. 

Alaska,  purchase  of,  589. 

Atlantic  cable  laid,  586. 

Board  of  Arbitration  meet  at  Geneva,  599. 

Boston,  great  fire  in,  601. 

Brownlow,  Governor,  his  efforts  to  suppress 
the  Ku  Klux,  591. 

Bunker  Hill,  Centennial  anniversary  of  the 
battle  of,  606. 

Canby,  General,  killed,  602. 

Chicago,  great  fire  in,  596. 

Colfax,  Schuyler,  elected  vice-president,  590. 

Concord,  Centennial  anniversary  at,  606. 

Davis,  Jefferson,  capture  of,  590. 

Field,  Cyrus  W.,  his  efforts  in  laying  the 
great  Atlantic  cable,  587. 

Fort  Philip  Kearney  built,  594 ;  massacre  by 
Indians  near,  594. 

Fourteenth  Amendment,  588. 

Grant,  General  U.  S.,  elected  President,  590; 
reelected,  600. 

Johnson,  Andrew,  President,  586;  differences 
between  him  and  Congress,  589  ;  impeach¬ 
ment  and  acquittal,  589 ;  death,  606. 


Joint  High  Commission  meet  at  Washington, 
599. 

Ku  Klux  Klan,  organization  of,  591. 

Lexington,  Centennial  anniversary  at,  606. 
Louisiana,  troubles  in,  606. 

Modocks,  outbreak  of,  601. 

Nebraska  admitted  into  the  Union,  589. 

Pacific  Railway  completed,  592. 

Peshtigo  destroyed  by  fire,  597. 

Reconstruction  Acts,  587. 

Sand  Creek  Massacre,  594. 

Seward,  William  H.,  death  of,  600. 

Stanton,  Edwin  M.,  death  of,  591. 

Sumner,  Charles,  death  of,  605. 

Thomas,  General  George  H.,  death  of,  596. 

Virginius,  the,  captured,  604 ;  execution  of 
her  officers  and  crew,  605. 

White  Leaguers,  murders  committed  by,  606. 
Wilson,  Henry,  elected  vice-president,  600; 
death,  607. 


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